I. LILIAS TROTTER BOOKS Br I. LILIAS TROTTER

Just Published BETWEEN THE DESERT AND THE SEA Cloth Boards 6s. net A new and charmingly illustrated volume, containing sixteen pages of reproductions of some of the author's choicest miniature paintings of persons and scenery, eonnected with her work in Algeria. All who knew Miss Trotter and have enjoyed her previous volumes will understand the warm welcome to this new issue.

PARABLES OF THE CROSS 3s. 6d. net PARABLES OF THE CHRIST LIFE 3s. 6d. net PARABLES OF THE CROSS and CHRIST LIFE Combined in one volume 5s. net The charming freshness and originality which characterise all Miss Trotter's writings have already gained for them many friends, In these dainty volumes, coming as they do straight from the field of service, there Is a note of hope and encouragement which will be found most stimulating. FOCUSSED : A Story and a Song. 3d. net

LONDON MARSHALL, MORGAN & SCOTT LTD LILIAS TROTTER AT 27. I. LILIAS TROTTER "LALLA LILI" ('I he Arabs' Name for her)

FOUNDER OF THE ALGIERS MISSION BAND

BLANCHE A. F. PIGOTT

MARSHALL, MORGAN & SCOTT LTD LONDON AND EDINBURGH MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD.1 I,ONOOH AND EDINBURGH FOREWORD

ISS TROTTER'S friends owe a very great debt of M gratitude to Miss Blanche Pigott, the comrade of half a century, who, through months· of weakness, has compiled these memorials from numberless letters, journals, and reports, seeking to let Miss Trotter, through them, tell the story of her life. Warm thanks, too, are due to the many correspondents who, by letters and reminiscences, have helped to create round that life the atmosphere of past days. It is a matter of regret that the limitations of space did not permit of their publication in full. F. H. FREEMAN. CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGB8 l. EARLY YEARS 1-6

II. CoNISToN, 1879. 7-15

III. ALGIERS, 1888-1890 17-27

IV. SECOND JOURNEY TO AFRICA, 1890 29-36

V. RuE DU CROISSANT, 1893 AND 1894 37-52

VI. lTINERATING, 1895 53-70

VII. 1896-1899 71-82

VIII. TOLGA, IC)OO-l90I 83-92

IX. TRACT-WRITING AND TRANSLATING, 1902-1904 93-105

X. DAR NAAMA, EL-BIAR, 1905 AND 1906 107-n5

XI. BLIDA AND BousAADA, 1907. u7-125

XII. TRANSLATING-SWEDEN, 1908, 1909, AND 1910 127-140

XIII. OPENING SLUM PosT, SHUSHAN PALACE, AND EGYPT, 1911, 1912, AND 1913 . 141-150

XIV. SOUTH LANDS AND THE GREAT WAR, 1914-1916 151-16o

xv. SOUTH LANDS, 1917 . 161-169

XVI. THE HoME CALL OF BLANCHE HAWORTH, 1918 AND 1919 171-179

XVII. lTINERATIONS IN TUNISIA, 1920-1922 181-192

XVIII. AMoNG THE MYsT1cs OF THE SoUTH, 1923 193-202 vii v111 Contents

CRAP. PAGES XIX. THE CONFERENCE oN THE MouNT OF OLIVES, 1924 203-212

XX. THE CLOSE oF RuE Du CROISSANT-OPENING oF BousAADA- THE NILE MISSION PRESS AT DAR NAAMA, 1925 213-222

XXI. NARROWING OF THE PATHWAY, 1926 223-229

XXII. HoME, 1927 AND 1928 231-245 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece facing page LILIAS TROTTER AT THE AGE OF 27 I

LILIAS TROTTER AT THE AGE OF 10 3 LILIAS TROTTER AT THE AGE OF 35 7 CouRT, RuE DU CROISSANT 37 From Water-Colour

ENTRANCE HALL, RuE DU CROISSANT 37

ORANGE COURT, DAR NAAMA 37 DAR NAAMA • 109 LILIAS TROTTER AMONG HER ARABS, TozEUR 153

Miss HAWORTH AND GROUP OF ARAB GIRLS 170

LILIAS TROTTER WITH HER CLAss AT RuE Du CROISSANT 170

LILIAS TROTTER, 1916 223

THE WELL AT DAR NAAMA

DAR EL FEDJR NEW MISSION HousE, DAR NAAMA 2 35

ix EARLY YEARS L1LIAS TROTTER was the granddaughter of Mr. Alexander Trotter of Dreghorn (1755-1842) and daughter of Alex­ ander Trotter of Devonshire Place House, London ( 18 14- 1866). His sister-in-law, Mrs. Mure, writes of him in her Recollections of Bygone Days : " I cannot name this dear brother-in-law without dwelling on his charming character of love, gentleness, generosity, unselfishness, combined with high qualities of intellect and acquirements." Lilias's mother was his second wife, Isabella, the daughter of Sir Thomas Strange. This happy marriage only lasted a few years, for he died, leaving three children by this marriage, and a nearly broken-hearted widow who never recovered from her loss, though she survived her husband thirteen years. The children were : Isabella Lilias Trotter, b. 1853. · Alexander Pelham Trotter, b. I 8 57, who married Alys Fane Keatinge, is a civil engineer, has written on scientific and engineering subjects, and was sometime the Electrical Adviser to the Board of Trade. Margaret Alice Trotter, b. I 860, who married Hugh Egerton, the first Beit Professor of Colonial History at Oxford. CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS

ILIAS was the seventh in the family of nine, her father having four sons and two daughters by his firstL wife Jaqueline, daughter of Bishop Otter. Coutts, the eldest, took Orders and became Senior Fellow, and, later, Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cam­ bridge. William, like his father, became a partner of Capel & Co. Henry, afterwards Lt.-Colonel Sir Henry Trotter, K.C.M.G., C.B., R.E., went out to India in I 860 in the Royal Engineers, and, after a varied and dis­ tinguished career, became Consul-General at Beyrout for Palestine and Syria. Later he was on the Danube Com­ mission with a house at Galatz, in Roumania, where he lived with his wife and daughters until he retired. Edward started early in life as Vicar of Alnwick and Chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland. Later he devoted himself to work in the Colonies. He belonged to the pioneer type of Churchman, preferring the outposts of civilization to a settled parish. Lily's much-loved elder sisters, Jaqueline and Emily, completed the first family. Her sister, Mrs. Egerton, writes : "Lily's earliest friendship was formed at Woodford in Essex in 1 8 57, the summer when Alec, her youngest brother, was born, and a house was taken near that of the Chapmans. Here she delighted in the free country life among the large group of children-brothers, sisters, and cousins-of which the youngest in the house, Edith, now Mrs. Barclay, was her chosen friend. Specially remembered were the winter birthday holidays upon the ice. Through all the early years, memories are still fre-sh of the gentle seriousness of Lily's character, and of how these young friends held her as one a little apart and above them in her tastes and ways. "As children, our father cultivated scientific as well as artistic tastes in his family. Thus encouraged, Lily and 3 4 I. Lilias Trotter Alec, her younger brother, built many scientific castles in the air. I well remember them, deep in conversation on our walks in Regent's Park or the Park Square Gardens, inventing a secret language. Her father's death in 1866, after two years' most painful illness, made an indelible mark on Lilias's sensitive nature. She was now twelve, and a gravity came over her which remained in the memory of those nearest to her. Her great gift of love and sympathy seemed boundless. No trouble was too small or too great to bring to her. She simply shed a constant light over her home. Her quality of selflessness was unique. " The discipline which Lilias so noticeably imposed on herself and, by example, encouraged in others, was begun in early years. It came from within, and was neither learnt at school nor enforced at home, where her education was undertaken by German and French governesses and con­ tinued in the French classes of M. Antoine Roche. Lilias also had singing lessons for the production of her soft contralto voice, but of drawing lessons she fortunately only had one short course in landscape-indoors-from which no benefit was derived. " None of those who were with Lily when plans for holidays were made, or journeys begun, will forget the look that came in her eyes, the keenness of the born traveller. ' You see, I was always a tramp,' she explained, when, later, after a long and serious illness, her doctor gave a grudging consent to her starting off on a desert quest. She seemed to rise out of her great weakness, animation stirred again at the thought of the new vision of beauty in store for her. " In 1872, her mother took her to the conference at Broadlands, where Lady Mount Temple collected from far and near those who came to welcome the Quaker preachers, Mr. and Mrs. Pearsall Smith of Philadelphia,· and to listen to their teaching on the Life of Consecration. "Of the great spiritual emancipation here given her, Lily's whole life was an illustration. The impression awakened by these meetings was strengthened at both the later conferences at Oxford in 1874 and Brighton in I 87 5. Lily took part in the mission work in these towns, which Lord Radstock carried on after the conferences. Follow- Early Years 5 ing closely came the Moody and Sankey Revival Mission in London. Both Emily and Lily became workers at the Haymarket Opera House, where the meetings were held. It was due to the influence of these three conferences, at which speakers were collected from places remote geo­ graphically and apart intellectually, that Lily's naturally wide outlook increased its horizon." The following letter, from her sister Emily, gives a picture of one of their activities (referring to a supper for omnibus men) : " What do you think L. and I were about from half­ past ten last night till 3 a.m. ? A rare good time it was. It was a very wet night, but they came about 1 80 in number ; some could not arrive till I a.m. They had a splendid supper, quantities of singing, very short telling addresses. I do trust there may have been much blessing ; many of them never go anywhere. Lily and I slept at Kilburn, creeping into lodgings at past three, without our boots. We were pretty stiff and sleepy. It was rather hard work ; of course at that time of night you can't get unlimited workers. I wished you had been there. " E. TROTTER." B. A. F. P. writes : " My own first meeting with Lilias Trotter was in 1874. A mission was being held in Cromer, and we had both been asked to help. " I do not think I saw much of her during the mission, but soon afterwards she came over to luncheon with us. We walked across the Park to the edge of the wood, where the stately trees stand like a solemn cathedral aisle, • Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade.' I had come to the turning of the ways in my life, and was sorely perplexed, realizing that to follow what I felt was God's will for me would be the breaking of most precious ties. I told her my difficulty, and, in great distress, cried, ' What must I do ? ' Without hesitation she answered, ' You can only obey God.' " Soon after we made an amusing contract, to take out 6 I. Lilias Trotter a lease of friendship for five years, and, wonderful to say, she never forgot at the end of the appointed time to write and renew the lease, though later we extended it to ten years, and when last she returned to England in I 924, after her visit here, she wrote : ' We had better take it on now for ninety-nine years, which will land us in the millennium I ' " This utter faithfulness in all her dealings manwards and Godwards was the distinctive feature of her life. She set her face steadfastly to follow her Master. ' Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning; Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.' " She told me at this time how startled she had been in Cromer Church when about to put some coin into the old alms-plate to see engraved in the centre, ' The Pierced Hand of Christ.' ' One could do nothing but empty one's purse into that pierced hand,' she said. Forty-seven years afterwards she drew a picture of that old alms-dish on the cover of her A.M.B. report, and wrote : " ' In no traced image but in deepest Spirit truth, that hand of Jesus is stretched out to receive for His Moslem world-He is waiting to see what we can give Him for those lands where Islam holds sway.' " After this I constantly stayed at Montagu Square, that unique household where Lily lived with her mother and brother and sisters, a place of sunny gladness and laughter, as well as of varied work and interest and un­ stinted hospitality." FROM I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. "MoNTAGU SQUARE, June I 876. " Have you been reading anything nice lately ? I find, to my great joy, that I can read in omnibuses now without hurting my eyes. I have nearly finished the first volume of Carlyle's French Revolution in that way in the last few weeks, which speaks well for the extent of my journeys. I was reading about Hezekiah yesterday, 2 Kings xviii. I 9. How wonderful his faith was in rising straight up and. trusting God utterly, after he had just been sinning against Him so deeply I " Good-bye. I should love to see you.'' LILIAS TROTTER AT THE AGE OF 10, LILIAS TROTTER AT a&. CONISTON, 1879

2 " WE ourselves are ' saved to save,' and are made to give. " The pebble takes in all the rays of light that fall upon it, but the diamond flashes them out again ; every little facet is a means, not simply of drinking in, but of giving more out. " The unearthly loveliness of the opal arises from the same process carried on within the stone : the microscope shows it to be shattered through and through with number­ less fissures that catch and refract and radiate every ray they can seize. " Yes, there lies before us a beautiful possible life­ one that shall have a passion for giving, that shall be poured forth to God-spent out for man : that shall be consecrated' for the hardest work and the darkest sinners.' "

" The essential idea of the Cross is a life lost to be found again in those around." From Parables of the Cross, by I. L. T. CHAPTER II

CONISTON, 1879

THE GREAT DECISION

" Tlzere came a woman having an alabaster box of very preciOlls ointment, and poured it on His lzead. Wizen His disciples saw it, tlzey lzad indignation, saying, To wlzat purpose is tlzis waste ? "

N 1876 Lilias went with her mother and sister to Switzerland, and her sister told me that she could neverI forget Lily's first sight of the snow mountains ; she was so overcome by their majestic beauty that she burst into tears. They went on to the Maderana Thal, where a conven­ tion was being held ; and it was here that her greatest friendships were formed with Miss Haworth and with Miss Mary Clifford, and here she preached her first sermon in German, standing on the mountain-side surrounded by the village people and a number of goats. Leaving Maderana Thal they drove over the St. Gothard Pass to Venice, where they stayed in the same hotel as Mr. Ruskin. He took them about Venice to see the pictures and sculpture that he thought would best educate Lilias's eye, and set her to draw the pillars in the fourteenth-century court of the Abbazia San Gregorio, and also in his studio at the Academia, where he was copying " St. Ursula's Dream," by Bellini. This friendship lasted to the end of Mr. Ruskin's life. As long as he was able he corresponded with her, and during her furloughs in England she visited him whenever possible. It was in 1879 that the great crisis of her life occurred. She went to stay with Mr. Ruskin, who put before her the brilliant future that would undoubtedly be hers should ~he give herself up to Art. She told me that she felt as if she had lived years in those few days. Through them 9 IO I. Lilias Trotter all she only sought to know and follow her Lord's Will, using to the utmost what gifts He had given her. The question before her was-should she give herself to the development of her artistic gifts, to which Mr. Ruskin promised such a future, or should she continue to devote herself to direct work for souls? In writing to me from Coniston she says, in quoting his words : " You will understand that it is not from vanity I tell you, at least I think not, because I know that I have no more to do with the gift than with the colour of my hair-but because I need prayer to see clearly God's way." The intense delight she felt-not at the thought of fame, but at the prospect of a life given to Art and surrounded by Art­ only made her seek all the more earnestly to be guided by God's Will alone. Soon after this she started for a much-needed holiday with her brother Edward and her sister Margaret, to Norway, when she wrote : " How I shall want you when we are seeing beautiful things l " Beautiful things l What they meant to her ! Never shall I forget standing with her on the Sheringham boundary, where the woods in the Green Lane join the heather-covered W eybourne Hills. The evening glow through the branches of the trees, the carpet of bluebells and pink lychnis at our feet, the air full of the songs of birds, colour and sound mingling so that one could hardly sense where one began or the other ended, the hush upon our spirits as we stood silent there. At last she moved, and with a sigh said, " I can hardly bear it." Long years after, when again we stood in silence gazing at the glories of sunset in the African Desert, with the camels and white-robed Arabs slowly stealing away in the distance, she said, " Oh, how good it is that I have been sent here to such beauty I " Thank God, she never lost an intense joy in life and beauty, or ceased to stop and recognize it. " A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare." r,N. H. DAVIES.) On her return to England she went to Windermere. Coniston, 1879 II

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P.

"WINDERMERE, August. " I shall probably go to see Mr. Ruskin for a few days, which I rather dread. I see as clear as daylight now, I cannot give myself to painting in the way he means and continue still to 'seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.'" Shortly afterwards Lily returned to London. I can never forget an afternoon spent about this time at Montagu Square with her and Mr. Ruskin-Mr. Ruskin leaning back in an arm-chair, his sensitive face and blue eyes full alternately of pathos and amusement as he talked and talked, Lily sitting opposite with her hands clasped, resting on the table, bending slightly forward with a look of re­ strained eagerness, as she watched and listened to him · The sombre London study was forgotten, all the glory of the lakes and mountains seemed round us, and we could see the light upon the grasses and bramble leaves from the sunshine streaming across the road, and hear the children's voices and laughter, as he described his meeting a band of village children with a hand-cart, and getting into it and letting them drag him helter-skelter down the hill ; the innocent joy and beauty of it all ! The year 18 80 found her in Norway with her brother Edward and his wife, and her sister Margaret, who tells me the holiday might well have ended in disaster if it had not been for the courage and presence of mind of Lilias, who saved her when in imminent danger of drowning. It must have been about this time that she first made acquaintance with Miss Helen Freeman, who became her close friend and fellow-worker for the rest of her life. Lilias had to undergo a slight operation in 1884, which added to the mental and spiritual strain she had passed through at Coniston and in Norway. It left her very ill, and she had to give up her work and live a more or less invalid life for a time, her heart being affected. She wrote to me: " I think I have been rather at a standstill lately. ri~r/~

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u Coniston, 1879 13 Dr. Bennet can't quite make out what is wrong with me. I seem to have started some original device of my own, but I am to be consulted over again in a day or two, and will let you know the result. It all seems to matter strangely little, whatever conclusion they come to, and meantime the quiet is so good and I can get about in cabs and wheeled chairs." Mrs. Egerton writes : " In the summer of 188 5 came another eventful visit to Coniston, when for a fortnight Mr. Ruskin entertained Lily, Alec, and me. , "He was at that time writing Prteterita-his work being mostly done in the morning and read aloud to us in the evening. " After breakfast Lily was asked to read his letters to him, and then came her lesson and ours. It seemed a differently shaped lesson at every hour of the day. One time she admitted a dislike for the colour purple, which called forth stern reproof. Cupboards full of lovely minerals were opened, rock crystals and amethysts of every shade were spread forth, flowers were picked, water­ colours of birds by William Hunt, mountain scenes by Turner, were all called into contribution by her master to persuade her of the greatness of the heresy. She never dared object to purple again ! " The influence of Mr. Ruskin on her painting was very marked. She was faithful to Nature in the minutest detail, " every curve carefully reproduced." How well I remember the eager, rapt attention of her face as she painted a little piece of lichen, and told me what Mr. Ruskin had taught her in this way. About this time she wrote : " God has given me such blessed times alone, such a sense of stilling before Him. Have you ever noticed in Ezekiel i. 22 how the heaven above the living creatures was reflected upon their heads, so·still were they in their light­ ning speed ? That is what we need to learn, I feel so sure, even if it is in the darkness and stillness of' a grave beside Him.'" This she truly learnt·: " She was still and created a I4 I. Lilias Trotter stillness," as some one wrote after seeing her for the first time. " It was lovely seeing Miss Trotter; she is beau­ tiful to feel near. I love the quiet of her." This was many years after, when the fight had been long and hard. It was the stillness of strength, the white heat of iron from the furnace.

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P.

" BROADWAY. " We came over here to get a little cooler. There is a delicious bit of the Avon which makes it fresher. Yes, I have been sketching a little, but it's not a very good place for it ; one can never see less than thirty miles or so at a glance, which is very lovely but embarrassing to draw. I am reading Maurice. I thought him at first very depress­ ing, but now, at the end of volume one, I think him most beautiful. " It is such a help to see that it is possible to be wide and charitable in ' views,' and yet to be firm and clear as to what one does hold. It is like the stretch of country one sees from Broadway, not necessarily all in a haze because of its wide sweep. . . . " It has been such a help lately to see the distinct teaching in the wine as well as the bread, being given us at His Table, ' Bread being what keeps our bodies up to their present level of strength, as it were, Wine that which raises them above it.' "

After her period of convalescence at Broadway she returned to London in the autumn and resumed her Y.W.C.A. work, which she had been carrying on at the W elbeck Street centre for the past ten years. She now took up a fresh task and shouldered the responsibility involved in adapting the Morley Halls to the Y.W.C.A. purposes. These were formerly Music Halls situated off Regent Street, and she organized their conversion into club-rooms where working girls could obtain meals and sleep. It was an heroic venture that she then made, and nothing but her dauntless courage and trust that it was Coniston, 1879 God's plan could have carried her through all the difficulties. At this time she was working a great deal at rescue work, and I well remember her sitting up all night with a poor half-crazed girl, to save her from threatened suicide. This work, and all the other claims upon her, was too great for her highly strung, tender heart, and the moment seemed to be rapidly coming when she would be thoroughly worn out with serving one and all. What really cheered her was that one of the members at the Y.W.C.A. in Welbeck Street desired to go out to the Zenana Mission in India, and another to China. She told me that whenever she prayed, the words " North Africa" sounded in her soul as though a voice were calling her. She attended a meeting about some other mission field, when at the close some one stood up and asked, " Is there any one in this room whom God is calling for North Africa ? " She rose and quietly said, " He is calling me." So the die was cast, and she was not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision. It was a momentous choice. She was young, a dazzling prospect lay before her ; possible success as a great artist, fame, honour, wide influence, and usefulness in the society of minds akin to her own. Should she follow the urge of her artistic nature - or, for Christ's sake, a path of hard work, discouragement, and misunderstanding. In the quiet weeks that had passed she had counted the cost, and most gladly left all to follow Him. " For ah, the Master is so fair, His smile so sweet to banished men, That they who meet it unaware Can never rest on earth again." ALGIERS, 1888-1890 cc IT was in a little wood in early morning. "The sun was climbing behind a steep cliff on the east, and its light was flooding nearer and nearer and then making pools among the trees. cc Suddenly, from a dark corner of purple-brown stems and tawny moss, there shone out a great golden star. "It was just a dandelion and half-withered-but it was full face to the sun, and had caught into its heart all the glory it could hold, and was shining so radiantly that the dew that lay on it still made a perfect aureole round its head. And it seemed to talk, standing there-to talk about the possibility of making the very best of these lives of ours. " For if the sun of righteousness has risen upon our hearts there is an ocean of grace and love and power lying all around us, an ocean to which all earthly light is but a drop, and it is ready to transfigure us, as the sunshine transfigured the dandelion, and on the same condition-that we stand full face to God." From Focussed, by I. L1uAs TROTTER,

18 CHAPTER Ill

ALGIERS, I 888-1890

THE FIRST START TO ALGIERS

" They shall go forth with joy and be led forth with singing." FTER some months of study at the Mildmay Hospital, Miss Trotter started for Algiers with three friends. AShe wrote: "March S, · 1888.-Left Waterloo 5.50, with the chorus from the platform, ' Crown Him Lord of all,, ringing in our ears and hearts. . . . " Katie Stuart, Lucy Lewis, and I had the carriage to ourselves, so were able to kneel down and give our dear ones into God's hands. "At Southampton Blanche Haworth joined us. It was a strange, glad feeling of utter loosening and being cast upon God, as the paddle-wheels gave their first throb. " . . . Started by the night mail for Marseilles. Such a fresh flood of gladness again, that we hardly knew how to stop singing when once we began." "March 8th.-The morning broke over a clear blue range of mountains with foreground of olive, cyprus, and almond blossom, though the earth was white with frost. " The Marseilles harbour looked lovely in the after­ noon sunlight as we steamed out, but one's eyes and heart seemed swept away from the last bit of Europe to the sea­ line in front, with Africa beyond it. At sunset next day the first peaks of land came into sight, dim and purple, and as the night darkened, the phosphorescence became wonderful, making a firmament of green starry flashes on the water besides the silver ones overhead. We went below for a time, and on coming up again there was another far-stretching cluster of golden stars, the lights of Algiers I As the pilot's boat came up, it broke a path of living fire, and flakes of it dropped from the oars and ropes till we 19 20 I. Lilias Trotter were almost beside ourselves with joy. We were alone on the upper deck, and the noise of letting off the steam gave cover to singing once more, ' Crown Him Lord of all.' " "March Ioth.-1 shall never forget the loveliness of our first sight out of our port-hole of the Arab town rising tier above tier in a glow of cream colour against the blue­ grey western sky, the water glimmering in blue and gold below, and a flock of gulls sailing and wheeling alternately between us and the land. The colporteurs kindly came to meet us and saw us ashore. We felt like children set out for a holiday ; everything was so new and wonderful, we were almost exhausted by delight before we reached the Pension. . . . Then we had our first prayer-meeting, timing it the same hour as the missionary prayer-meeting at Morley Halls, and like them going round the world." "March I Ith.-Went to the English service .... It is all too beautiful, with the hallowing thought through and through, of being for His Name's sake. Those words 'in His Name' came to both Blanche and me (we after­ wards found) as we stepped from the boat to the quay. I could cover sheets if I tried to say how happy we are ; my heart just goes out to, and clasps round the natives ; we do love them." " March I 2th.-In the afternoon Miss Kemp (who was to become one of her faithful supporters and friends) asked us to a little weekly prayer-meeting." "March 3oth.-We had such a lovely time of prayer, and when we got to the Arabic lesson, about which we had been specially praying, it was beautiful to have such a sense of being cast upon God. " After tea we went out for a walk, winding in and out of little gorges, the bank above full of aloes and prickly pear, the loveliest tiny dwarf blue iris, and all sorts of flowers. Such a strange hedge of prickly pear looking like a huge antediluvian monster. But the thing that went deepest into our hearts was an aloe that had yielded up its life to the one great point of seed-bearing, the plant below wrecked in the act of bearing up the stem of red and gold, which was crowned with a cluster of seed. 'Delivered unto death that life might be manifest.' " Algiers, 1888-1890 21 Here follows a list of their day's occupations : studying Arabic ; getting up between 5.30 and 6 ; reading and praying ; going to help at the McCall Mission in the evening, and speaking to the people in French, which seemed a head-forward plunge; but God helped, people staying to the after-meeting and, as they hoped, coming into the Light. Journal: ." Went into the little Arab hamlet; the women most friendly and asking us in, but of course they could not read. We talked to one who could speak French ; we began speaking of our Lord's lo-ve ; she shook her head most sadly. 'No, He does not love the women, only the men.' We repeated John iii. 16. But she only said again and again, ' No, no, not the world, not the women.' Wherever we went they went and found men for us, and these seemed mostly able to read. One poor fellow lying on a mat looked desperately ill, and listened with a wistful look as the others read the texts aloud. Oh, I did long to be able to talk to them ! " " March 1 9th.-. . . In the afternoon I went with Blanche into the town and into a mosque. The utter emptiness of the place, standing square and still and solemn, struck one so, and the sense that the worshippers were straining away into emptiness instead of meeting God." " April I 7th.-Rather more people at the Bible reading. In the town this afternoon we hear that it has raised opposi­ tion, and that some one is trying to keep others away, but one is not sorry for that-it means war, and war means victory, which is better than placid assent.'' " April I Sth.-We feel more than ever we must get among the Arabs. I wish you could have seen those eager, keen faces in a little cafe which we passed this after­ noon ; a man was reading to the others, and we stopped and gave some texts ; there was such a sense of welcoming." In August, Lily and her companions went off to Pescade for two days' rest. It was wonderful that they had been able to work on in Alg'iers through the summer when all the other English had gone to cooler climes. Their house 2.2 I. Lilias Trotter proved to be a beautifully cool one, and the eucalyptus wood was fresh to look at, especially in the morning when it was lit up with the gold and green sunrise. When they returned, difficulties were not over, and I have heard from friends in Algiers that Miss Trotter was occasionally in real danger from the roughs, but she went on her way undaunted. By October I 9th the work seemed growing, and she was gladdened by the first Arab to desire teaching. She had talked to him in the native town, and he had promised to come and see her. After many promises of the sort being broken, it was a great joy that at the time appointed he appeared. Lilias writes : " He said he had been in France and had seen Chris­ tians and that they were good, so he goes every Sunday to Mass as the nearest thing he knows. We asked him to kneel down and pray, which he did so reverently, taking off his shoes and repeating after me the words of his own accord. As he was going he caught sight of Holman Runt's' Light of the World,' and asked if that were' Sidna Aissa,' and being told Yes, took off his shoes again before going to look at it. He came back in the evening brim­ ming over with happiness. ' Monsieur Sidna Aissa ' had given him work ; he had been out of work six months, but had found it directly on leaving us. He says that if we will have a meeting for Arabs who can speak French, he would bring them. We thank God for this first earnest of what He is going to do. We hope to go and see his mother to-morrow." So the time went on with alternations of encourage­ ments and disappointments, and she felt that it would be impossible to get really at the people without living in the Arab quarter. They had a tea-party for Arab water-carriers. It was difficult to know what to give them as refreshments-they kept to eggs, dates and oranges, nuts and bread, some French sweetmeats, and jam of their own making. Their guests were nervous about these at first, but took kindly to them. Before the company broke up, B. Haworth sat down Algiers, 1888-1890 to the little organ. At the first notes every one became perfectly quiet while French hymns were sung, and a wordless book was shown which had been improvised out of pieces of calico, etc. In the hush God was felt to speak. " December I 2th.-Lucy and I went, for the first time, to the Arab town after dark. . . . Each street was a series of pictures, lying half in shadow, with a sudden flood of light shining here and there. We looked into a dimly­ lighted place and thought for a moment it was full of corn sacks arranged in rows, but were startled by a sudden shock of movement, and each was transformed into an Arab standing still as a statue ; in a few moments the weird sound of a boy chanting came from a far corner, and again, as one man, the whole congregation were instantly on their faces on the ground. It was a mosque hidden amongst the other buildings, and it was their hour of prayer. Such a sight I "

39 RuE DuPuCHE, ALGIERS. May 15th, 1888. After much searching an apartment had been found, and Lilias and her co-workers were hard at work from morning till night settling in. At their first prayer­ meeting they decided to dedicate to God one room a day, beginning at the sitting-room. In the midst of this came the stunning shock of the news of her beloved sister Jaqueline's death, whose last words had been, "Peace, peace, and at such a time." Lilias wrote : " I can't write about it here. Only to say how full of God's tenderness it all was. It was Ascension Day, and we were just going to church when the letters came. They made me wait for half an hour, and then we went in time for the Communion Service. It was so beautiful to go straight to that before anything of realization came ; it has been a help having all the household work to do, as the bodily tiredness made one sleep. God has been very good." The next day, seeing crowds of Whitsuntide holiday­ makers in the streets, they sallied forth into the French cafes, high and low, with great bundles of papers. People 3 I. Lilias Trotter were perfectly civil, but the running comment on all sides was " Armee du Salut." Lily wrote : " We had been feeling so starved for want of work lately that it was most refreshing to get anything definite. We came back with empty baskets and very glad hearts." " June 5th.-Such a good time in the Arab town. We went to a district full of shoemakers, who seemed far more intelligent than their neighbours, and hands were stretched out on all sides for our papers. One man, the master, read his aloud to his workmen and asked if there was not a little book somewhere that told more, and we gave him a Gospel. We had a long talk with another man in French, who asked us to come and see him again, and with a third who had a Gospel given to him by some one, and was inclined to be argumentative. We are practising reading aloud in Arabic the passage again and again, in order to be able to give it to those who cannot read. It is lovely to have got thus far even, in power of contact with them, but oh ! we long to speak." " July I 6th.-B. and I had a good time in the Arab town with our bags stocked with Arabic, French, and Spanish books. Before we had got far, there came to the front among our usual escort of children, a little fellow of fourteen ; he had a long rod in his hand which he flour­ ished, to drive off the children if they became too trouble­ some. He showed us in which streets we should find most men who could read, and picked out the scholars from the cafes and workshops, and would not let us give papers to others." " July I Sth.-At the meeting the soldiers mustered again in full force, and we had about fifty people crammed into the room. A good many more were outside the window, and these, with the boys whom we could not let in, made a considerable disturbance, which reacted upon an audience very much on the qui vive within, and made the whole time a rather rough fight. We find the neighbours are getting indignant at the noise, venting their wrath to-night by throwing pepper upon the children outside the street door. Blanche went out to stop their clamour, Algiers, 1888-1890 and found that their anxiety to be inside was based on the text, ' Le Seigneur vient,' which we had put up last Sunday in the meeting-room. They had got hold of the idea that it would be to our room that He would come, and they did not want to miss the sight. When it was explained that His coming would be like lightning across the sky, and that every eye would see Him, it seemed quite a new light .to them, and pacified them. " Do pray that we may see what to do about the meet­ ings. Unless the boys get quieter we shall have to take a room outside without delay, and that· is not a thing to be done lightly. Do pray about it all. When once there are a few able to stand by us and bear witness that all is true, it will be so different." "January 8th, 1889.-We had a good time in the native town. We got a long talk with one of the educated men, who asked us into his office and seemed a kind of public accountant. He gave us coffee and tea. He owned he was sinful, and said that God kept a book in which He scores good deeds against bad ones, one of the former cancelling one of the other. That Christ should be able to take away the love of sinning seemed to him a new idea, and he asked us to come again. This utter absence among them of the idea of holiness is terrible. "The Arab water-carriers who came to tea are so warm in their greetings, and shower a volley of Arabic upon us whenever we pass. Half a dozen of them came again for a meeting. I wish you could have seen them, with such eager faces, sitting round the table in every sort of garb, trying to catch our meaning between French and Arabic. We have translated two choruses into Arabic, which we taught them, and at the end, when we had prayer, there was a real hush. They all say that if we were nearer the Arab town they could bring many more.'' After much tramping the streets a corn warehouse in the native quarter was found, and Lilias wrote : " It is good to have the sense at last that we may go forward, though it will be another month before we get in. Do pray God will use the interval to fit us spirit, soul, and body, for beginning real work.'' I. Lilias Trotter On May 7th information was received that a number of lads were coming to make a disturbance at the meeting and turn out the lights. Lilias thought she would tell the police, but the words, " That your faith and hope might be in God," came so strongly to her mind that she felt she could not, and all proved quiet. Three young men­ an Arab lad, brought up by the Jesuits, a soldier, and a boy, the lame son of a cafe-keeper-very troublesome at the first meetings, came to say that they had been, on their own account, to a friendly policeman and asked him to come every evening in a private capacity, which he promised to do. A permanent permission for the meetings was then obtained from the Prefect. " It came over me a week ago that God has greater thoughts towards this place than just blessing our little meetings. So much so that prayer for them has got almost swallowed up in prayer for the whole town with a certainty that a great answer is on its way and that our present work is to sow broadcast, for the coming harvest .... " ' The sowing beside all waters ' must mean unselfish sowing, not calculating what will take root in our little plot, but letting that take its chance in the future harvest, scattering meanwhile far and wide." Obtaining the necessary permit, three times a week they visited English ships in port, and in May they had a sailors' tea, Dellama helping with great glee and remark­ ing, when all was ready, that it looked just as the feast in heaven would look. But Lily says, " Personally, we could not quite contemplate cold beef and buns in that light." The steward of one of the boats rejoiced their hearts by speaking up before the others, telling of the change that had come to him in the last few days ; and in meetings that followed other British sailors were blessed. In July they went for a short rest to Pescade, and on their return to Algiers began the meetings. Roughs gathered again and were troublesome. All their helpers were scattered, so, as Miss Trotter said : " We are left to ourselves, or rather to God. We do feel that all the stripping and emptying means a recoil of the wave before a fresh flood of blessing, the strength of Algiers, 1888-1890 the recoil just measuring the strength of the gathering force as with the rising tide. " The meetings have come to a deadlock, owing to the gang of rough lads headed by a little cripple, but we are not even now without a bit of cheer. Ahmed has twice asked us to have meetings in his little room ; the first time he got a congregation of three, the last only one, but it is nice he should want it ; he does pray about it. It gets us access to fresh houses in the Arab town. " On Sunday night, the ' F~te de la Revolution,' we all four went down to the boulevards to give tracts (to spoil the sport, we hear the newspaper· has remarked-so be it). An Arab spoke to us and drew from his pocket one of our typographed papers which he had kept for weeks. We gave him our address and he came this morning ; we hope he will come regularly to read with Ahmed ; there is evidently a real hunger in his soul. To-morrow we are asking all our fellow-lodgers to afternoon coffee, followed by a meeting ; they cannot understand what we are about, and why we hold on in spite of everything." Feeling it better to close the meeting for a few weeks, she went to Pescade, taking Katie Stuart and then Blanche Haworth, and fresh opportunities opened amongst workmen building houses there. Lilias held meetings for them at twilight under a huge olive tree, with a candle by which to read out the hymns, shielded from the wind by a hat hung from a branch. The men were dark in their ignor­ ance, but listened eagerly, and begged her when she left to come again. On their return to Algiers they reopened the meet­ ings ; perfect quiet prevailed and blessing rested on the people, the concierge asking to come to prayers in the mornings, and becoming quite changed. Miss Trotter writes : " We have had much to thank God for ; several new ones have professed to find Christ. Some of the boys really helping in the work. In the Arab town also we are welcomed eagerly often and begged to come again. "If only one had twenty lives! But I suppose that to have the power of God concentrated on one would be better still." SECOND JOURNEY TO AFRICA, 1890 "FAR up in the Alpine hollows, year by year, God works one of His marvels. The snow patches lie there, frozen into ice at their edges from the strife of sunny days and frosty nights : and through that ice-crust come, unscathed, flowers in full bloom. " Back in the days of bygone summer, the little solda­ nella plant spread its leaves wide and flat on the ground to drink in the sunrays, and it kept them stored in the root through the winter. And as it sprouted warmth was given out in such a strange measure that it thawed a little dome in the snow above its head. Higher and higher it grew, and always above it rose the bell of air, till the flower bud was formed safely within it : and at last the icy covering of the air-bell gave way, and let the blossom through into the sunshine, the crystalline texture of its mauve petals sparkling like the snow itself, as if it bore traces of the fight through which it had come. "' The things that are impossible with men are possible with Goo.' · " Yes, face it out to the end : cast away every shadow of hope on the human side as a positive hindrance to the Divine. Heap the difficulties together recklessly, and pile on as many more as you can find : you cannot get beyond the blessed climax of impossibility. Let faith swing out to H1M. He is the God of the Impossible." From The Glory of the Impossible, by I. LILIAS TROTTER. CHAPTER IV

SECOND JOURNEY TO AFRICA, 1890

"All power is given unto Me in heaven as on earth. Go ye therefore."

HESE are the words printed by Miss Trotter in the beginning of her beautifully illustrated journal of T1890. " October 3rd.-When one left England again," she wrote, " those left there seemed far dearer and closer than when first we came away. . . . " In the morning we saw the first lights of Africa­ Goo's AFRICA-we were at the mouth of a large lagoon, and Tunis lay in the distance. . . . " I have been thinking these last days of Isaiah xviii. 4 : ' Like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest ' ; dew and sunlight both need an absolutely clear sky. God wants us to live under a southern sky, not under an English one." " October 1 6th.-We came in sight of Algiers, a dim pile against the grey-blue hills, for it was a misty day, and soon we were in port. . . . " We found Kheira in her new home, and got such a welcome-she said we were like her sisters. Then we were met by little Abdel-Kader, who, baby as he is still, quite remembered us, and seizing our hands pulled us up the stairs and put his little black curly head in my lap. The women were very friendly here too, and insisted on our eating a quantity of couscous. . . . " In the next street we got into talk with a woman, a poor old Arab widow, who readily took us back to her house, where was her daughter, also a widow, of only twenty, poor child, with a baby boy. We are to return with remedies for the baby's sore foot, so there is another house ; and yet another opened on our way home, because Katie helped a woman to carry one of her babies (she had one on each arm) .... When we think how we used 31 I. Lilias Trotter to try in vain to get an entrance anywhere, we do say, 'The Breaker has gone up before us. If He will only break His way into the hearts now, as well as into the homes I' ... " It is lovely to watch how one door opens after another nearly every day ; of course one knows that ' in favour with God and man ' is only an early stage, and a passing one, in any work that is really of God, but we can take the gladness of it while it lasts." " November 9th, Sunday.-Our class began with nine or ten boys, but one of them took a sudden fear that we were going to draw him, and out he went with half the others after him. We have tried to find out the meaning of this horror of being drawn. It seems that they think that every creature that is drawn must have a soul belonging to it somewhere, and they are afraid that their souls will be spirited away to inhabit the bodies that are represented. It applies even to animals . . . some one told me of an artist who showed an Arab a drawing he had made of a fish. The Arab said gravely, ' What will you do in the resurrection ? Do you know that you will have to find a soul for that fish ? ' 1 "Went again to Hatigua with remedies, and told her of Christ blessing the little children. It was lovely to see the look of wonder and delight in her great dark eyes, and to hear her begin to repeat it to the others, telling them how He took them in His arms and laid their heads upon His shoulder. A nice old French lady came with us. She had never been in an Arab house before, and was delighted with them all, and told them how her husband and daughter had died full of joy. We are quite glad to have a married person to take round now and then, for I am afraid many of them think that spinsterhood is part of our religion. " Their ways are so curious. The women all mix freely, and do their cooking together in the court on the lower floor, but if a man comes in, he clears his throat violently in the little vestibule inside the street door, and 1 This early prejudice against drawing pictures has now (1929) largely e-iven way in all Moalem lands, and picture-boob are in demand I S~cond Journcy to A{rica, I 890 33 instantly all the women and girls run helter-skelter into their rooms, like rabbits to their holes, and pull down the door curtains, and the place is cleared of all except his own woman, for they recognize the throat of their lord and master. As soon as he has passed into his room they all pop out again. In every house there are four or :five families, and in the lease of a room it is entered that unless in illness or urgent need, the men must not come into the house between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., except for their midday meal, which leaves the ground much freer for us. The women shut up so when the men are there. We often divide and go into different rooms. lt is worth anything to tell the story for the :first time, helpless though one feels." Miss Freeman joined her this year. "January 2nd, 1891.-We had a New Year's gift of six new houses, :five of them through 'bonbons' again, given to two little children on doorsteps ; the mother asked us in and up to the housetop, and there we made friends with the neighbours. Some one signalled to us from the next-door roof ; she proved to be the sister of Y amina (one of our :first friends), and two other heads appeared over another parapet, and were won by means of pincushions. (Oh, those precious pincushions, they open house after house to us I) "To-day the sweetest of baby children got us into its house, a little thing of two or three, with hardly any­ thing on but a bit of white sheet, which it wrapped round it with the greatest dignity. Such a dark house I The name of Jesus is seemingly unknown. . . . " We had been wondering and praying how we could get the people to the point of accepting Christ. They seem such a long way off, though many are glad to hear about Him. But when we went out (I suppose because this was in our minds) we felt difficulty and antagonism in house after house ; the people were full of arguments, and in one house they refused us entrance. It gave such a glimpse of what the struggle will be as the battle closes in on these poor souls, and yet it is really a step beyond being listened to with surface content. " We were summoned to-day to a sick woman in a 34 · I. Lilias 'Trotter room we had visited only once before ; she was in high fever in a dark, comfortless place. We could not stay long, but we asked her what we should bring her when we came again. ' Oh,' she said, 'a harp ! ' (a little zither harp of Blanche's), 'and make it sing about Sidna Aissa. I think that would make me feel better.' And yet she is a stupid­ looking old woman, who seemed to take little in." " March.-An Arab stopped us and said, ' Was it you who used to give away books three years ago ? ' We said, ' Yes.' ' Then give me another-the biggest book you have. I am looking for a religion,' was his reply. We took him a Testament. Pray for him." " April 8th.-The first convert was baptized in the river by Mr. Lambert. Our chapter at prayers told of the first-fruits presented before God. It was just that. " We have felt a sense of storm through the air, a sense of war again, such as we have not felt these last months." Soon persecution and hard blows fell on Ahmed. He came back bleeding, eighteen Arabs having set upon him ; he, quiet and happy, had not struck back ; but this could not go on, or the mission would inevitably get into trouble with the authorities, so it was felt best to send him to Tunis. In the meantime the houses kept opening and the work increasing. " A time was set apart on Friday mornings for crying to God for an outpouring of the Spirit on ourselves and on this land. We decided to ask Mr. Glenny (North Africa Mission) to make it known to the other missionaries. It is lovely to hear how, all along the coast, hearts are being stirred on this subject. Surely it must mean that ' the Dayspring from on High ' is going to visit us. " I don't think any one at home can have an idea what the missionary magazines are to one out here-the feeling of exultation that there is about the triumph of light over the darkness, no matter where ; it is part of one battle, and if ours is only outpost duty, no matter." " April 2 5th.-The Kabyles are coming into the town in numbers. Our hands are too full with Arab houses, but I just keep the Kabyle houses open by going now and then, and also those where natives from the interior Second Journey to Mrica, 1890 35 live. Other workers may come later ; meanwhile we can be loving them and praying for them. I have been thinking lately what a work for God it is, just loving people. He says in Deut. xxii. : ' If an ox or an ass has goQe astray, thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee till thy brother seek after it.' I think He gives us sometimes a like service for souls­ wandering souls that we cannot bring back to Hirn ; sometimes all we can do is to keep them near us, and show the kindness of God to them, and hold them in faith and prayer till He come to seek them. · " We went this evening to see the service in a mosque, a special service the last week of Ramadan. I wish I could give the feeling of it, the great dim mosque lit by rows of tiny lamps, open on all sides to a court brilliant with starlight, with trees and splashing fountain, and then the rows of these solemn white figures, rising and falling simultaneously in their prostrations, like the waves of the sea. The front row, the strictest sect, joined in the recita­ tions of the Imam, and then suddenly the whole crowd went down on their faces, and after a pause of silence there began a kind of wail, repeated at intervals of a moment or two by the whole congregation, with their bodies rocked backwards and forwards again to the ground-' Allah I Allah I Allah I '-there was an indescribable moan in the intonation-a crying out for the living God ; the echo of it has rung in my ears." This brings back a day, many years after, when Miss Trotter and I stood watching another scene in the desert on Good Friday. Thousands of Arabs, silent in the morning light, the desert sand gleaming golden for inter­ minable reaches. Suddenly all the white-robed figures were prostrate with their faces on the ground. She pressed my arm, and said in a voice of intensity, " Oh, can't you hear the cry, 'Let Ishmael live before Thee'?" And just then a glorious rainbow shone forth, stretching over the prostrate forms and resting in glory on the purple Atlas Mountains, the background of the wonderful scene. We both seemed to hear in oU:r hearts the answer : " I will remember." I. Lilias Trotter Journal: " Yesterday, when walking along the road, a bright­ faced Kabyle woman caught sight of us and ran up to us with outstretched hands, crying, ' How are you, Sidna Aissa ? Corne to my house.' In all the utter ignorance that it reveals, there is a sweetness in the literal bearing His name and being identified with Hirn." " July I 8th.-This has been an idle fortnight, as regards visiting, for I had got knocked up (through working too hard in a bad sirocco, I think). " I went to see Fatima. She was in great joy over her first answer to prayer. Their house was to be pulled down. She said, ' The night before last there were only two days left, and I suddenly thought, those English say that Sidna Aissa will give us whatever we need, so I said, " Oh, Sidna Aissa, if Thou really canst do everything, please give me a room, for I have to move in two days." Next day the room was found ; did He not answer quickly ? I believed Hirn before ; but I believe much more now.' It was good to see her childlike joy. " I gave Taiturn my story-book to show the pictures. ' Corne and see Hirn,' she said to a strange girl, ' our Lord Jesus.' How glad that 'our' made one's heart I It is a strong word in Arabic-' Our possession.' " It is a trying summer, heavy sea-fogs which make a vapour bath sometimes for days together. " We have a curious test of the heat this year in the waterpipes exposed to the sun. The result is, all the morning, water is hot. I have taken the temperature for curiosity ; it is 1 19 ° I " " August.-We had a communion service here this evening, and Ahmed and Mohammed came. It was lovely to have two natives with us ; it gave one the feeling of the tiny beginning of a Church. " Oh, the beginnings I The joy of them more than counterbalances the hardness of working in an unsown land like this.'' ORANGE COURT, OAR NAAMA and COURT, RUE DU CROISSANT. From Water-Colour, ENTRANCE HALL, RUE DU CROISSANT, RUE DU CROISSANT, 1893 and 1894

37 " WHO can tell what harvest after harvest may be waiting in the eternal years, after the summer of earth has faded into the far past ? "We have to do with one 'who Inhabiteth Eternity,' and works in its infinite leisure. Some years ago, when a new railway cutting was made in East Norfolk, you could trace it through the next summer, winding like a blood-red river through the green fields. Poppy seeds, that must have lain buried for generations, had suddenly been upturned and had germinated by the thousand. The same thing happened a while back in the Canadian woods. A fir, forest was cut down, and the next spring the ground was covered with seedling oaks, though not an oak tree was in sight ; unnumbered years before there must have been a struggle between the two trees, in which the firs gained the day, but the acorns had kept their latent spark of life underground, and it broke out at the first chance. " If we refuse to stay our faith upon results that we can measure, and fasten it upon Goo, He will be able to keep wonderful surprises wrapt away in what looks now only waste and loss. What an upspringing there will be when heavenly light and air come to the world at last I In the setting up of Christ's Kingdom, the waste places may see ' A Nation born in a day.'" From Parables of the Cross, by I. LILIAS TROTTER, CHAPTER V

RUE DU CROISSANT, 1893 AND 1894

BrsKRA AND THE SouTH LAND

1893 HE year began with things glad and sorrowful. Souls were drawn to God, but the fight was fierce, Tand the enemy very strong. Difficulties surrounded them, to be met with a confidence in the Father's overruling that subsequently proved amply justified. Even at this distance of time, it seems well not to publish all the details, but the deliverance was very real. "February 26th.-lt begins to look as if my wish of the last four or five years is coming true, that we should get an Arab house in the Arab town." (This was the house in Rue du Croissant.) " We are anxious to secure it at once, for I am probably off next week, and may be away a couple of months. I have been meaning for some time past to go with Blanche to see how the land lies for work farther in the interior. Biskra is the place that has been on my mind, an oasis fifteen miles into the desert." They started off for Biskra, going by Constantine, that wonderful town that crowns a huge limestone crag. " El Kantara, March 1 3th.-We left Constantine and came across the great barren tableland that separates the sea from the desert. It got more and more desolate as the line crept upwards, and by and by tents began to replace the huts of the Arabs ; the only feature that broke the monotony was a couple of salt lakes, the haunt of flamingoes and other wild birds. At last the line curved down, twist after twist, amongst sandstone rocks, till we stopped here, two hours short of Biskra. Such a strange fairy land of a new world it is, one looks and looks, and feels as if it were a dream. Beyond the very primitive inn, i 40 I. Lilias Trotter the sides of the gorge close in till there are not fifty yards between them, in towering masses of red crags, and then suddenly they open on a great forest of palm trees stretching far into the valley beyond, along the river-bed, backed by purple mountains. We only went to the opening of the valley that evening, for it was getting late, but over the brow of the nearest hill one could see a queer little village. I must try for it to-morrow." "March rSth.-1 set off alone about 8.30 a.m. across the stream on a couple of palm trunks, lashed together ; then up, following the winding path ; there was hardly any one about ; Ramadan had begun, and the people sleep late ; only a boy wished me 'Bonjour, monsieur.' " The village lay silent in the sunlight, such a quaint place, built literally of one piece with mother-earth, thick walls of rough clay, with roofs and doors of palm-wood. " Suddenly, just as my heart went up to God for some opening, a woman's figure glided out of a door and stood under the shadow of the wall, spinning with one of their tiny hand distaffs, and I went up to her. She asked what I wanted, and I answered that I loved the Arabs and had come to have a talk with her. A kindly pair of eyes peered at me from under her extraordinary headgear, and, without a moment's hesitation, she led me in, through twisting dark passages to a big barn-like room, and before I had quite realized where I was, she began shovelling handfuls of dried dates into my bag, then vaulted over a low mud wall in the corner and added two eggs, and lastly fetched a saucer of milk and made me drink it. " But when we sat down and began to talk, I found, to my dismay, I could hardly make her understand a word. Were all my hopes of getting at the people out here to come to nothin~ ? I feared so for a few minutes, and then found it was only because she was quite deaf. " Then, one by one, a dozen women gathered in, with exclamations of astonishment. I do not think they had ever seen a European at close quarters before. 'Look at the skin on her hands (gloves) ; look how smooth her hair is I ' And they drew their :fingers gently down the parting, having already taken off my hat. (Their hair Rue du Croissant, 1893 and 1894 41 is plaited with enormous hanks of wool on each side, dark red and dark blue.) 'Did your teeth die, or did you have them pulled out? ' And finally, as I stood up to go, and rose to my full height, one of them asked in open-eyed astonishment, 'Are you going to get any taller ? ' " But in between they would listen, a bit at a time, while I told them of J esus~nly a bit at a time, and then would come a chorus of, ' Mohammed is the one who saves us, witness to Mohammed.' One woman specially was earnest over me, as I have seldom seen a Christian earnest over a soul. ' Say, " La Ilaha illa Allah or Moham­ med Rasoul Allah," ' she said beseechingly, laying both her hands on mine. 'Just say it once; we will never tell of you, and it will get you to heaven. Oh, say it ! ' She took me off at last to her house at the end of the village, to see her little girl who was ill ; it turned out to be the rickets, past cure, but it gave the chance for another talk with the women there. We were interrupted this time by a wolfish-looking dog, who kept barking at me, but at last, when 'shooed' sufficiently by the women, he ran, in an acrobatic way, up a palm tree that propped the wall, and disappeared on the roof. It was growing late in the morn­ ing and I had to get back, but I promised to go again and syringe the ears of my first friend, Fata hint Mimoun.'' " Tuesday.-To-day we have been to another village, quite a large one, streets and streets of these weird-looking houses ; the interiors are quite indescribable and undraw­ able from recollection. There is something colossal about the massiveness of them ; they are decorated with rough zigzags of black and yellow, a huge recess for the fireplace, small mud shelves with mats for beds, baskets four or five feet across for storing corn-that is all the furnishing. The rest palm logs for ceiling, with a layer of palm branches across them, plastered again with clay above that. We had group after group round us-first women, then men; they listened with less interruption, but they understood so little ; one longs just to live among them. " The next day we went back to the first village and had a great ceremony, syringing old Fata's ears. She went and said her prayers while the water was heating, 42 I. Lilias Trotter and then insisted on lying down flat on the ground, full length at Blanche's feet, while the latter did it. A group of neighbours sat round and looked on with deepest interest. Such faces they have, these women, full of char­ acter and intelligence. Forcible faces. Oh, they would make Christians ! I felt more access to them to-day, more touch with their souls, and they are so sweet and friendly ; they pressed us to stay to supper or to come back and spend the day, and we got two or three more houses. In one of them we watched the weaving on a great loom. They have not even come to the use of a shuttle; the women's hands move deftly in and out of the warp, and the thread comes through somehow, and is patted down with a little comb." " Biskra, April 3rd.-We were up and out early, and went down to the river-bed. Looking back, every crack and line of the hills lay reflected in a pool. Looking on and on, the desert stretched away like a great sea, broken only by an island of palms here and there, away and away to the Touaregs and the Sudan beyond. I shall never forget the feeling of that first sight of it. But the sense of rest and silence that lies in the immensity of it grows day by day. There is not much headway here yet. I had a bad headache and could not go out. The place I felt drawn to was the tent encampments on the opposite side of the river, so yesterday afternoon I went off there. " There was first the river-bed to cross, and that took some time ; stepping-stones there were none, except an accidental one, and when one seemed well over, came a channel to be jumped. "There lay the tents close by ; as usual, a little girl came to my help. She had come to draw water, and in a few moments, by the aid of a doll, we were fast friends, and she was throwing stones at the wild-looking dogs who were barking on all sides. I had a good time in her tent, but there seemed no opening to the others. " Yesterday I tried the first group of tents again, but I think opposition has been roused there. My little friend Zohra, who was down by the brook, looked at me mourn­ fully, and two women urged me vehemently to go back. Rue du Croissant, 1893 and 1894 43 ' The dogs will eat you if you go on,' they said. I told them I was not afraid, and was moving towards the tents, but they waved me back so energetically that I felt there was something behind it, and that there was no use in forcing an entrance, so walked on to the next group of tents rather sadly, though of course opposition is better than indifference any day. "As I got nearer, came a helter-skelter rush of children, dancing along the sand ; then a woman or two and a few girls ; and soon I had a little congregation on the river brink, looking at the wordless book. They took me back to their tents, and brought me from one to another, ex­ plaining among themselves what I had come for. 'Come and live with us,' they said. One of them showed me the scratches on her face made when mourning for her husband who died a few days ago. ' What do you do when people die ? ' she asked. I told her that if we believed in Jesus, God comforted us. It seemed to strike them so, they kept repeating it to one another, 'God comforts them I God comforts them ! ' " Oh, the awful need of the world I It presses on one coming to a new ground like this." Soon the desert was reached some thirty miles beyond. "It throws one more and more on God for guidance, as to the bits of work, and He does guide. Yesterday, for instance, I went to find a village that has been on my mind to visit. When I got there I could find no sign of a way open into the houses, till at last I passed one with the door ajar, showing a group of women within. I felt, that is the house I must go into, and yet had no impulse to try to get in, so went a little farther, and was greeted by an old woman who asked me to buy some eggs. I had no money with me, so begged her to show me her house, and I would come another time. Back we went to an archway, and she turned in, as I expected, to that very door. ' This is my friend,' she announced to the other women, and gave me two eggs for love ; soon the whole houseful were gathered listening." " April rnth.-We have got the house in the Arab town. Hallelujah I I felt that we were to keep to the 44 I. Lilias Trotter terms we had offered even if we lost it, for it was the fair price, and that God could as easily give it to us for that as for any other. So we settled to wait. This morning as I was dressing, such a tide of prayer suddenly sprang up that I was sure it was lying in the balance. It was not prayer that we should get it, but a definite claiming that it should be given by God Himself, or else withheld by God Himself, as He saw best for the warfare here. Then this afternoon, when we came in, there was the telegram saying, ' The landlord consents.' "This is a wonderful country altogether. People buy not land but water. The water arrangements date from prehistoric times, and it is so perfect that the French found nothing in which they could improve on it, nor did the Romans before them. " We came straight north, choosing fresh halting­ places-places where no one ever stops, and one can always leave little glints of light behind. The people, Arab and French, take Gospels gladly, as a new book is a rare thing. "As we neared the coast we came to a strip of Paradise Country such as I have never seen in my life, but hardly Paradise either ; it was more like some enchanted garden in a fairy-tale, for there was something too luxuriant about it to be wholesome for mind or body Oleanders towering twenty or thirty feet high in full flower, the pink blossoms tangled round with wreaths of wild white roses to the very top ; huge gnarled olives, and beds of maidenhair, and the bluest of blue seas to back it all. The contrast to Biskra may be imagined ; but the air was heavy and quiet, with a kind of spell about it ; it would be a hotbed of fever to stay in, and some of the iris growing under the trees looked quite wicked, strange sickly yellows and greys. It was almost a relief to get into a country of more ordinary kind, as Bougie neared. It was beautiful still ; the oleanders grow along the seashore.'' " Algiers again.-Moving into Rue du Croissant. "It was good to turn our backs on the long French streets and plunge down among the crowds, first through a street thronged with Jews, then a little bit up again through the Arab quarter, and then down the flight of Rue ciu Croissant, 1893 and 1894 steps that led to our door. I was praying all the way for some word from God for our coming in, but it was silence till the moment of crossing tht; threshold, and then came the word, ' In this place I will give peace, saith the Lord.' " It was sealed by a lovely verse that Miss Cox had for us, 'The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord.' There must be quietness for the dew to fall. " And He made it so fully true in the busy hours of these days. We had a quiet night, in spite of the sounds of the 'Aid' (Feast) which was going on all round us, and an earthquake which brought us all three together at 1 a.m. It was worth anything to wake up and find oneself here. It is just the right time for flitting ; this is the week for every one to move, so we could not do much visiting, and the people are delighted that we should change houses at the same time as they do. " It was lovely in the afternoon to run out and find oneself in two minutes in the thick of the people. I could only sing ' Hallelujah I ' in my heart all the way. " On Sunday when I nodded to them out of my window, one called out to another, 'They are the people who have harps.' I fetched my little zither harp and held it up, and they crept along a parapet like cats to a projection opposite my window, where we could easily touch hands across the narrow street. There they sat, half a dozen women and girls against the sunset background, while we played and talked to them ; then there was a sound of a man's voice in the street below, and they crept back without another word.'' The time for the rest in England was drawing near, and Lilias wrote : " It is a wrench to leave just as we have got down to the place we have so longed for among the people, but I believe God has blessing for us in England, and that we are to go. "The story of Elisha and the pot of oil (2 Kings iv.) has been full of power to me lately : Verse 2, 'What hast thou in the house ? ' ' Thy handmaid hath not anything l. Lili.as Trottet in the house save a pot of oil.• There must be an empti­ ness of everything save the one thing that is to be increased and multiplied. The Holy Ghost is in us, and it is only upon the spirit-life that He can come down. 'Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured.' " ' Hath not anything save a pot of oil •-no emotion -no experience-no sense of fitness-only the silent, hidden Presence. " Verse 3, ' Go and borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels not a few.' " It is not according to the tiny measure of our own personal need alone that God would fill--our neighbours• empty vessels make a channel for His blessing. " It is even so as regards the spirit-life of our own souls ; there would be but little chance for the fruits of the Spirit to develop unless our lives were surrounded by other lives ; see Phil. i. I 9, the very elements of discord round were to ' turn to the supply of the Spirit,' and all the more is it so with regard to the power from on High with which He would endue us. Power needs an outlet -makes an outlet. " And all thy neighbours-we may not pick and choose. We may not say, ' I will go to my poor people, but not to my relations and acquaintances. I' will go to the people of this country, but not of another country. Thou shalt pour out into all these vessels. Verse 4, '- And thou shalt set aside that which is full.' It is not that God would have us pour a few inches of blessing, so to speak, into the hearts around. Paul's prayer for his people was, 'That He would grant you that you might be filled with all the fullness of God ' : he travailed in birth for them until Christ be formed. " Only when the present need of the soul that is brought to us has been met can it be-as it were-' set aside ' with thanksgiving. How little have we learnt to believe for the filling of our neighbours' vessel, as well as for the filling of our own I ,, "Algiers, October 26th.-Oh, God has been good through these three months I The day before starting, July I 2 th, He gave me this promise, ' He shall come down R:ue du Croissant, 1893 and 1894 47 like rain upon the mown grass.' And He has made it true, Hallelujah I I was feeling ' mown ' in body and soul. There has been so much in the house besides the ' pot of oil.' He was beginning to show me how all must be brought down into the dust of death before the living in the Spirit, living out the life of Jesus, could be more than an intermittent thing. " And once in England, things that He had been speaking to me out here were echoed all round on all sides, and shone out in His own word from beginning to end ; it would take pages and pages. if I were to put it all down. " Another thing that He had begun to show me was how He has called us to share the Life of Jesus in inter­ cession, how men are to be reached by prayer in the Holy Ghost-prayer which fights through and prevails ; how then, and only then, can the windows of heaven open on the barren land. "And it is this opened heaven· that we must have in returning. It is wonderful to look back on these three years since we first left England, and see how He opened first the doors and then the hearts. It is no harder for Him to open the heavens. What we want is to have our faith brought down to the uttermost simplicity, to the absolute transparent childlikeness of those words, ' I believe in God.' It can be so, when, as some one said the other day, ' there is nothing between our bare hearts and Jesus.' " " The first days of March I 8 94 Helen and I started off southwards. We took a tent and meant to camp out in the desert villages near Biskra, but when we got there, such torrents of rain came on that camping out was im­ possible. We held our plans before God, and the convic­ tion grew that we were to go to Touggourt, a large native town 1 20 miles south. " It was joy to set our faces that way; one's heart goes out so over this Sahara desert and its tribes, and the Sudan beyond. Four days' driving in a queer little trap along a rough track brought us to Touggourt. The first night we spent in a caravanserai. That means a rough room I. Lilias Trotter provided for travellers by Government-just four walls and a roof, no furniture or provisions-a welcome sight, nevertheless, at the end of a long day. We made our­ selves quite at home. The next morning we were driving along the edge of a great salt-marsh that stretches away 200 miles to the Tunis frontier. I never before realized what parched places of the wilderness meant ; a desert within a desert. " On its very edge, made fruitful by an artesian well, lay Mraier, a village of a thousand natives, where we spent Sunday. It was, oh, so pitifully little we could do just passing through, we might have gone into every house and had a welcome. "Touggourt was reached at last, and such a sunset over the desert I Real desert here, the sand so fine and soft and deep. The streets are strange places, roofed in till they are twilight tunnels at the brightest, and often quite dark for a bit in broad daylight. We got into a good many houses by the help of Abdulla the guide, who had come with us from Biskra. The natives here are more difficult than the people of the villages, but there was a dear woman to whom we went again and again. She had a lovely childlike spirit, and drank in every word. It was well worth going if only to that one soul. " We stayed four or five days there, and then set forth again for our farthest point, the Oued-el-Souf cluster of oases with about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Road there was none, for the country is all sand-dunes with bits of level land between. A mule was found for Helen, and Abdulla and I had camels, and after some small adventures we arrived at El-Oued, the chief town, at 9 p.m. the second day, very glad in body and spirit to get there. " It is a strange country ; the palms look half buried in sand, for they plant them in deep pits where the roots reach the watery stratum below, and the towns look like a sea of tiny domes, built of grey concrete. It is utterly out of the way, and we were very curious objects ; so much so, that it was a work of time and patience to get a hearing. The dear, wild-looking women, and still more the children, were intensely excited over us ; there were more houses Rue du Croissant, 1893 and 1894 49 clamouring for us than we could possibly visit. It did, indeed, need a miracle-working Lord who used the loaves and fishes to make anything of it. " The men everywhere in the desert were eager for books-' I am reading and reading,' one man said, ' we are all reading ; we have never had these books before.' " After their return to Rue du Croissant they had their first Arab prayer-meeting to ask God to bring in more men, and were rejoiced at eight new men coming the next night. . The heavy rains prevented Lilias and Miss Haworth starting itinerating again for some weeks, but on November 20th they were off. " November 2 3rd.-We rumbled across the plain in a country diligence which brought us to the foot of the mountains some time after dark. There are many villages within reach .... " We set off with a small boy with whom we made friends yesterday. Crossed a bridge, and struck up to­ wards the mountains to a village, where lives one of the men to whom we spoke yesterday. It was a tramp, but the little 'open air' that we had up there, to which all the inhabitants gradually collected, was well worth it. How to get back again we hardly knew ; the donkeys we hoped for were not to be had, and the short-cut which would lessen the distance by two-thirds meant crossing the river without a bridge. There was nothing for it but to take the men's offer to carry us over, which they did with some staggering, as the river was swollen with the rains, but we landed safely, and got home soon after sunset, rather tired and very happy.'' " December 3rd.-God has been good to us. We have been having beautiful days. On Friday we had nearly eight hours of mules and villages ; the first a little village university. Our mule-driver knew two of the men, and we had a reading with them under some bushes and left

ITINERATING, 1895

"BISKRA, January.-We are getting ready in good earnest for our start southward-all our equip­ ment in native utensils-they are so much more sensible for the rough travelling. An iron plate which can be hung from the camel's pack-saddle is placed on three stones for support, and does for baking bread, or grilling meat, while everything in the way of stewing and boiling is done in a smaller copper pot, a larger one for drawing water ; the wooden one, for mixing and kneading dough, can also be slung from the camel's baggage. Then we have a couple of water-skins, and what delight us most of all are our provision bags ; they are skins of sheep or goats, dyed in every kind of device, no two alike, and tied up when full .... " Our first stage was a short one, in a sort of carriage very rickety, which dragged us and the last remains of our goods at a tearing rate over the dry watercourses and rough intervening ground, with the evening glow dying fast behind us. It was dark before we got to the Palms; we had been there once before, and the men now sent two or three times for books. So I told Abdulla if he could get any of the men together, I would explain to them what was in the books. "A group were gathered with a lantern, on the look out for us at the village, and two or three children with flaming torches of dry palm branches to show us the way. They escorted us to our lodgings in the Sheikh's house. It was a long, low room piled three or four feet high with sheepskins stuffed nearly to bursting with crushed dates ; the only ornament a lovely little window looking out on a walled-in court containing bamboos, palms, and lemon trees. " Furniture, of course, there was none, but we managed to. squeeze our hammocks between the two rows of sheep­ skins, and betook ourselves to the couscous meal which 5 I. Lilias Trotter was waiting for us. We tried vainly to unpack what we needed, for there was no place to put anything down. " At last we tumbled in, not to sleep much ; there were many disturbances. The dog tied in the court below barked untiringly, and the rats carried the bread we had put ready for our breakfast from one end of the room to the other. But the words,' As thy day so shall thy strength be,' came with power, and proved true, for the sleep of the last two or three hours brought such refreshment with it. " At eight-thirty the men gathered in the cafe next door, about twenty of them, and they listened so earnestly ! Two or three followed us down the street as we went off, and the spokesman said, ' Come again ; we have not had enough of these words.' " The camels that had been loading meanwhile met us outside the village, and we started. Blanche had already made the experience at Biskra, in the achievement of mounting and getting off. I don't think I told what an experience it is. The camel is made to kneel down, which sets him growling ; then you clamber over his hind­ quarters to a pile of rugs placed between the luggage ; then, with groans, he gets up on his hind-legs, which nearly tilts you over his ears ; then he rises on his forelegs witL·. a jerk that nearly sends you backwards over his tail; a final heave, and you are up ! I " We feel we have got a bit lower this expedition than before, and oh, the joy of getting lower, and nearer and nearer to the people I I think the time will come when we shall have no fixed plans, but just wander and stay and wander on again as the openings come and go. " All day we skirted the mountains with their dreamy colours. How we prayed there would be water in the spring, and how we rejoiced when we saw a tiny trickling amongst the stones I We had a glimpse of amethyst crags in front of us, as the valley opened, and then, as the day died suddenly, we came on a well, with water in plenty. The guide had gone before us and was waiting for us, fuming greatly and pointing out the place he had chosen for the tents, a dark corner near the water, where one felt Itinerating, 1895 57 malaria in every breath. No, we said, we must go to the rising ground. Poor fellow, he was beside himself with rage, and threw himself on the ground, and there he stayed. The men muttered to each other, confirming our fears, ' He's been drinking spirits to-day ; hallelujah that we drink water ! ' Which we fervently echoed in our hearts. " They were good to us ; we none of us knew anything about tent-pitching ; we had only the stars by this time to light us, but God did help us and it stood steadily, though somewhat crookedly, with one or two little bushes in the middle of it, that we had not· time to cut down. ' Consult your heads,' said the men ; ' what shall we bring in ? ' For all our possessions lay strewn about; so we con­ sulted our heads, and got a lamp lit, and collected what we needed, giving a wide berth to the guide and the loaded gun that lay by his side. Finally, with thankful hearts, we pegged down our door pegs, and shut ourselves in with God, and had a peaceful night, with nothing to break the silence but the whining laugh of a jackal now and then, and the camels chewing the cud. It had been such a windy sky all the day before, that we thought a gale must be coming, but there was not a breath to shake our ill­ rigged tent. Oh, God was good to us ! . . . "Next day we looked out to where the desert lay like a blue sea through the gap in the hills, and saw the place -a speck on the horizon-that the guide wanted us to make for, but we said, 'No, we would go by the mountains.' He acquiesced quietly.... " It was a lonely bit of country, only a stray Chaouwai lad here and there minding his flock, and every few miles a praying-place, either a mound or a circle of trees-from which the cry of the desert goes up to the unknown God. We had no adventures except that my camel came down on his knees and tipped me off.-with no hurt, mercifully, but a little bruise or two. "· The guide went out to reconnoitre, and came back late to say that he had found a place to which we could move-a grain store, where we could get water and, per­ haps, milk and eggs. It was too late to move that after­ noon, so we _rested and rejoiced in the stillness. I. Lilias Trotter " The grain depot proved to be a splendid centre ; it lay not far past the deep torrent-bed of a river. . . . All the time that afternoon, and the next day, men and mules were coming backwards and forwards to it from the moun­ tain villages around, and book after book went up with the returning grain. " It soon got about that we had books and medicines, and group after group gathered round us, so that we had about as many little congregations as we could wish for. Oh, those dogs ! They careered round our tent, yelping at night, and one of them got its head into the earthen pot in which our supper had been cooked, and could not get it out till he had broken it to pieces in a ditch. "The camels and their drivers dawdled and dawdled ; we were sure it was that they might make it too late for getting the tent up, and land us at the Sheikh's for Sunday ; the last rays of sunlight fell on the mosque outside the walls as we reached it at last, and before we were settled into our canvas walls (for we did not let their plan succeed), the evening star was dropping down through the clear fire of the west. " All we had to eat was three eggs ; too dark to get firewood to make bread; still less provision for Sunday. Blanche made dumplings and coffee on the spirit-lamp, and next day food poured in. A large white cock and a huge cake of bread from the Sheikh, and handful after handful of walnuts, dates, and eggs as we went among the people. "A group of men were there, outside the tents before we were out, waiting for books. Before 8.30 a.m. we had had our first meeting, of more than twenty. " Then we tidied up, and another group of nearly forty gathered, among them two arguers ; it was a battle for some time, then Blanche asked them how they thought their sins would be taken away. They answered, as usual, ' By prayer, fasting, and alms.' But, were their sins taken away, or had they got them still? And if they had them still, could their way be the right way ? And we felt a hush of conviction come over them, in which we could tell them of a salvation which really saves. Then, till twelve, we were in the houses with the women. Itinerating, 1895 59 "Now it is the early afternoon, and we have escaped to the river-bed for a bit of quiet. A sweet-faced boy has descried us, and come after us. He has offered to be our son, and come with us; he wanted a book so badly, but we had to refuse them to boys. Blanche has written him out a text, and he has gone off with it joyfully. Now comes a man who wants an eye-lotion ; we tell him we have none made yet, but, in faith, he pours out the contents of a tiny bottle that he has brought us (rose-water by the smell) and gives it us to fill when we have it ready. "He has hardly gone when another man finds us out -we thought we were hidden in a crack in the cliff-and says, 'Come and see the Marabout's wife; she wants to see you.' And here, before we got under way, comes a tall lad with the same message from the Sheikh's wife; so off we go." " January 3 Ist.-The Marabout-the husband of the woman who had sent for us-we felt a man worth coming to, if there were no one else ; he had a spiritual face, with a soul-hunger in it, and in the questions he asked there was no spirit of carping, only a blind groping after some­ thing that he had not grasped. The guide told us that he-the Marabout-had gathered twenty men in the evening and given them coffee and read to them from the Testament we had given him. 'He is glad of the words, very glad.' It will be a path to Calvary if he hears the Lord's' Follow me,' and obeys." " February I st.-More experiences-not over-pleasant ones. And yet with it all such loving-kindness and tender mercies. The first morning Blanche went down with high fever, and the next day I collapsed too. We were both in for a sharp attack of influenza, caught at the Caid's. We hardly got to the village at all. The village came to· us, one congregation of men after another ; they made a rendezvous of our yard, from morning till night ; and every now and then Abdulla would come to the tent door and say, ' There are men here for eye medicine,' or, 'to hear the Word ' ; and one or other of us would struggle out to see them-there would usually be sixteen or eighteen of them waiting. I had to leave it all to Blanche at last, 60 I. Lilias Trotter as my voice went and I could not speak beyond a whisper. "We got through three days, drinking much muddy water, and fowls boiled down to broth, and on Monday struggled on through the next stage of our journey, in some weariness and painfulness. At one halting-place we had almost the whole village gathered in a semi-circle round our tent door listening till sunset." " On Tuesday we got to S. ; a well, with a good many Arabs coming and going. Blanche had a relapse by this time, partly from a chill, and partly from nursing me. I felt we must get some food somehow, and told Abdulla he must get a sheep, and we certainly did pick up upon it. A Caid came up, too, and offered us some bread a French officer had left him. We had come to our last dry crust, and it was too wet to light a fire and bake. " On Thursday we again plodded on. It seemed step by step, as if Satan were trying to hinder us, and that fight on we must ; and in the weariest bits we never felt that we could turn our faces west again, and the worst over we felt better in the evening-though cramped and tired­ than when we started. We camped among some dear wild people on Thursday night. "Next morning the red-draped head and shoulders and brown face of a woman thrust itself into the tent while we were dressing, and could hardly be persuaded to cease staring at the unwonted sight, and next morning it was still more embarrassing, for two dark men's faces appeared, pushing aside the tent fastenings before we were ready to come out, with the present of two bowls of milk and a flat cake of bread for breakfast. They were dear people in that place, and there was more response there than we had had yet. " Blanche hardly knew how to drag herself through the last day, and we hoped for quiet on Sunday ; but before 8.30 a.m. the Sheikh's brother was there, to ask us to go to him to dijeuner, so I sat and talked to the gathered band of men while she pulled herself together and got dressed. His women were a delightful set, and we sat and talked to them for a while when the meal was over. The staircase which led up to our dining-room was two ltinerating, 1895 palm logs a little way apart, at an angle of 4 5° or more. The protuberances of the logs were cut away every foot or so to make notches, and up we scrambled, a height of six or seven feet, glad of the friendly brown hands stretched out at the top to give us a final heave. "Next morning we left the village, lying stretched out in its loveliness against the morning sky, and made our way across a rough bit of country. !' We dismissed our guide, and trusted to our map. It was rather a dreary road over a barren plateau, with keen north wind blowing ; at night Abdulla seemed anxious as to where we should camp, ·and said they were going to watch all night, as this border country was no­ man's-land, and not safe. God's hand was over us, for in the morning up skulked a man against whom Abdulla had been warned as the most noted thief in the neighbour­ ho'od. It turned out later that he had followed us from our last halt with a group of men, and stopped behind at the place where we slept, but nothing came of it." Thus they went on from village to village, and at last reached B., the centre of their hopes and longings for this expedition, and the goal of their struggling on. Journal continued : " Soon we saw the men winding up in procession from a basin of palms, and filing in under the low gateway of the village. A bit later the Taleb and another man came up to us and listened very earnestly to the parable of the marriage feast. Next morning I had a good time with a group of big lads, telling them the story of the Crucifixion, but when we got to the village and began talking to the group of men outside the gate, they just howled at us and would not listen to a word. Their 'hearts were all white as snow,' they said, and if ever they did anything wrong their witness to Mohammed was 'like soap' and cleansed it out ; they had the right way to heaven-what were we, who never prayed, or fasted, or gave alms ? What were we to come and talk to them ? They knew the road · to heaven. We went off to see if the women were more accessible, and were taken to the house of the bride, where the greater part of them were grouped. I. Lilias Trotter " She was sitting like a statue, with a little round looking-glass at the end of a stick held in her hand, her mouth dyed all round with henna-such a sad mouth it was. They crowded round, men and women, but the women were as hard as the men. Blanche slipped in and said a few words to the sorrowful little bride and her bridesmaid, who sat by her, and it was the only gleam of softening there. We left it sadly, lying under its lovely mountains. It was the toughest place we have come across. " We turned our backs on the mountains now, and began plodding round the salt marshes. " As we turned south again, marking where lay the palms of the first oasis, how one's heart went out with prayer that already the Spirit might brood over the chaos in the hearts over there, and prepare them for His ' Let there be Light ' ! " To the west lay desert land, and to the east the ashy whiteness of the Shott. By sunset we reached a promon­ tory of solid dry ground, built up of lovely mica crystals, where we could pitch securely. " Next day we crossed another bit of the Shott, and then a slowly-rising slope of sand, and then at last, with such joy and thankfulness, we reached the palms of D., and a few minutes after we passed through the first of the four villages which make up the oasis, lying in a cluster close together. "We took the mule and went back to the first village. House after house we went to, and felt through all of them that 'dividing between the light and the darkness ' that shows that God is at work. There were such listen­ ing faces among them-the Sheikh insisted on making me a present of two francs, and we had more dates given us than we knew how to carry. It is a strangely invariable rule that when hearts are open anywhere, they instantly want to give us things. " We have two dear neighbours ; they are Bedouins from the country round, and have come here for the Baths­ dear, wild-looking things. They helped us light our fire in the bluster of wind ; one of them ran back to their Itinerating, 1895 camp for a pot of hot ashes; such a picture she looked, swinging it glowing in the twilight, her red drapery flying and fluttering round her. They have been in and out with us all day whenever we are ' At Home.' "Next day, Sunday, we got to all the different quarters of D., and had visitors, singly or in groups, most of the rest of the day. The only way we can get any quiet is by going off and hiding somewhere in a palm-garden or a gully among the rocks. One realizes a little of what the Lord's going about the villages must have been-only He had not the shelter of the little tent to close round Him at night. " On Monday we went off on the mule to the three nearest villages, all lying close together. In one of them, where the local college is, we had to fight our way by faith to get into the village at all, and the men were afraid to take the books. The sense of opposition that there is here, must mean something good. I don't think we ever knew it so marked ; on the other hand, we feel there is a grasp and a grip in those whose hearts are open. The words, 'He that receiveth you receiveth Me,' have been a comfort to-day-they do receive us so lovingly, even when they know our purpose, and run to fetch their one egg, or two oranges, or a shower of dates. They have a love of giving. Last night, after one and another of the women had been giving us bits of the supper that they were begin­ ning to eat, a baby thing of two or three trotted up to me, and held up her little ' cake of unleavened bread ' for me to share it with her. "Tuesday we had the mule again, and went off to the two furthermost villages. One was very hard. In house after house we tried to get a hearing among barking dogs, screaming children and heat and dirt unspeakable, without the infinitely compensating joy of seeing a single face light up with a gleam of understanding. ' No, no,' they shouted back at us, ' our prophet is better than your prophet.' And the men outside were tougher still. " As we were leaving sadly, a fair-faced man came forward and asked if we had a book in French. Just that once, in filling the book bag, Blanche had felt that she must I. Lilias Trotter put in a French St. John, so there it was, waiting for him. He was a Jew, and had come from G. to set up a tiny shop. He asked us in ; it was only about five-foot square, but oh, we were glad of the darkness and quiet, and the dusty dates and water out of a very dirty earthen jar that he gave us, and we went on our way refreshed in body and soul, to try two or three more houses. " We came to one of the two chief towns, and for the fortnight there we shall thank God always, I believe, right into eternity. From the first we felt the Spirit brooding over the place, and that His word had a strange power on the hearts-simply His word with little explanation on our part. We did not get into a single house in the town -only in the villages round, but in them there was a lovely spirit of listening, and as always, when hearts are opened, such a spirit of giving. The men would gather round us in groups of six to twenty or more every hour of the day, till sometimes, for the sake of a time with God, one felt one must send them away and take refuge in a lovely palm forest that stretched away behind. "They were eager for books. There are four thousand men in the town who can read, they say. The questions they ask show how thoughtfully they read ; they knew our store was running short, and would ask so gently, ' Could you change this Gospel for another ? I swallowed this one last night.' We stayed the utmost we could, and then felt we were to get off to S., to pick up threads of last year, and one great hope we had that we might find some Touaregs there and get books into their unreached land. "Going out of the town, Abdulla bought a white hen, as we had not much solid food with us, but I don't think we shall eat her, even if we are very hard up, she is such a dear tame thing. Blanche took her up along with her on the camel, to save her from being tied by her legs, and there she has travelled ever since, sitting alongside on the baggage, or on B.'s lap, and trying for a peck out of every mouthful of bread or dates that she eats going along. The hen chirrups away outside the tent every morning at sunrise, till she is let in to plume her feathers, and she lays Itinerating, 1895 an egg for us every day, in the sand or on the camel, poor thing, as she gets the chance." " Sunday.-The next day was a battling on in simple endurance through a blinding blizzard of sand ; every trace of footprints round our tent had been swept clean away, and the track was invisible as we journeyed on. A knotted head of broom now and then proved that the men knew we were keeping right. "We camped early, as the wind was getting stronger and stronger, and it seemed doubtful if we should ever get up the tent. ' The world is wind,' ,poor old Abdulla observed wearily, as we struggled with it, all six of us together. At last we got it secure, and crept thankfully into its frail shelter. Towards evening the gusts lessened, and the stars came out of the brown sand-clouds, and next morning dawned clear and calm, showing round the western horizon range after range of snow-like sand-hills, rose­ tinted in the sunrise. We knew that buried among them were the villages for which we were making, villages where the true Light had never yet dawned. How the angels, how the Lord of the angels, must watch the first day when that light reaches a new spot on this earth that God so loves ! And the great wall of darkness is pushed back one tiny bit. Oh, the joy of being allowed to go with His message that first day ! How can people hold back from that joy, while one corner remains unvisited by the Dayspring ? " " Tuesday.-Such a ride here, over huge sand-dunes, indescribable in their loveliness, like untrodden snow-fields, piled high and broad, gleaming in the still sunlight." " Wednesday.-The next day was hard ; it was a broiling sun on the march, and Blanche had the nearest escape of a sunstroke, which gave her days of agonizing headache and fever pains. We eagerly watched the line of palms getting nearer, and made straight for a palm pit, leaving the men for once to put up the tent as best they could. The only coolness to be found was plunging our hands into the sand ; it felt a little cool, though when we took its temperature, for curiosity, it proved to be 88°. There was no quiet to be had ; rows of lads and boys and a 66 I. Lilias Trotter few men came round, not a pleasant set, excited and noisy, and not over polite ; we found they had been making a great brew of palm wine for a feast and had been drinking quantities. "At last, and sorrowfully, we left them and went to our tent. We must leave them, we know, next day, to get to L. for Sunday. " We were up with the first signs of daybreak. We felt we must leave our dear tent (it was 100° in it at 5 a.m.) and take refuge in the cafe, where Helen and I slept last year. Blanche's head was racking, and my eyes were bad with the sand winds, and darkness and coolness were lovely to think of. So we told Abdulla to make a rendez­ vous next day outside the town, with any men who wanted to see us, and we went through the narrow winding streets and dismounted at the door of the cafe. " It was good to feel a solid stone roof between us and this blazing, relentless sun. A demur crossed us when we found that two of the landlord's children were ill with smallpox in the house, and that the only ventilation of our tiny room was through a door that they shut when we came, leading to their room, smallpox and all. But the risk was less than the sun ; moreover, we should have caught it by now if we were going to, for the whole country is scourged by it, and at S. the children hung round us in every stage of convalescence. " When the night came on we were thankful to be under shelter, for the fiercest sandstorm we had ever known leapt up, and all night long the sand lashed like sea-waves against the walls and roof of our little room. " Next morning we could hardly see across the street ; it was impossible to go out. We felt God was in it, helping to tie our hands on the human side ; but through the long hours (my eyes were as disabling as Blanche's head, and we both stayed in the dark) there was a glorious sense of liberty Godwards, a triumph that no one could prevent : our getting hold of the people through Him. " Our faith focussed involuntarily on one point, the Touaregs. There must be some touch to be had with them ; the sense of grasp upon God could mean nothing Itinerating, 1895 else ; but whether there were any there we could not learn. We waited and believed. " ' I hear there is a Touareg somewhere about the town, a merchant from Ain Salah.' Oh, how lovely the words sounded to us ! So we set off for the market, to hunt for him. " Five minutes later, and then a cry joyful in our ears, ' He is there.' And they pointed to a little shop where we had been buying one or two things, half an hour before, and there he was, sitting on a bench in the corner-a dear, shy fellow with his black face-veil across his mouth, and his dark eyes dancing above it. He shrank farther into his corner when we appeared-he did not like to be made into a show. But I tried my Touareg salutation, learnt from Abdulla, and Blanche chimed in with her Touareg sentence, 'Behold me; I salute you ! ' And the gleaming eyes peered out a little, wondering what the strange apparition might mean. And then we went and sat by him and talked in Arabic. " Hardly able to believe that he was the first real live Touareg that we had ever seen, we gave him a Testament and told him that it was God's message to him and to his people, and that he must take it right away to his country, and give it to some one who could read Arabic. His eyes gave a silent gleam again, and he took it in his hand and hid it behind him. · We said if he would come to the inn we would give him more books. Suddenly he stretched out a great strong brown hand and grasped ours, first one and then the other, and we went. "But we felt we must get the books to him, without risking his coming to us, and we packed a dozen of our few remaining ones into a native bag and tied it up native fashion, and bundled it under my cloak and set off back with it. "There he was still, our Touareg, and his eyes shone again when he saw the big bundle, and again hid it on the seat behind him. " Should we ever see him again ? Our hearts had gone out to him and his land so strangely. " We had to take refuge now from the blazing sun. 68 I. Lilias Trotter An hour more and there was a knock at the door. There stood the Touareg, and he looked very shy. "' You told me to come,' he said; ' I have come. Then, with an effort, ' Is there anything you would like from my country I could bring next winter ? I bring ostrich skins to sell.' We told him we did not want ostrich skins, but he lingered on, and there, in the doorway, we ' preached unto him Jesus' in the simplest possible words. I doubt if he understood much, but he kept giving a queer click in his throat, which seemed to mean approval. His hand dived into some mysterious recess of his garments and brought out a well-worn wooden spoon and an in­ describable tube with a long leather fringe, which he thrust into our hands and turned on his heel and went, and we saw him no more. A little later we set out, the first stage of the way to T., where we went two years ago, and we stopped there again for a midday meal at the Sheikh's. We had felt hopeful about him. " He came out to greet us with his face shining with welcome, and took us straight to his house ; we were given our choice between the guest-chamber and an inner room opening out of it, with a huge heap of barley in one corner, and in another piles of leopard skins, saddles, embroidered belts, chased metal stirrups, and innumerable odds and ends that looked as if they had come out of the Middle Ages. We chose the inner room as being more quiet, and made a place for our hammocks and went back to the guest-room, and almost before we knew where we were, we found ourselves in the thick of a reading with the men who had gathered, full of questions and eagerness to hear, and on and on we went till nearly nine, when they were turned out, as our supper was served. " Most of the next day we had a series of talks and readings with the men ; there was the sense of the Spirit's presence and power. We got a chance, at meal-time once, of speaking to one alone ; we had seen by his face that he was on our side-on Christ's side, rather-but he had not said much. Now we asked him, ' Do you believe in Jesus to save you ? ' Quietly and firmly came the answer, ' I believe in Him.' ' Do you believe in Him only ? It Itinerating, 1895 cannot be that He and Mohammed will both save you.' He looked straight at me. ' I believe in Him only ; there cannot be two roads.' ' And do you dare tell others ? ' ' I tell them, little by little ; they are hard ; if some one would come and live here and teach them they would listen.' And then the serving-man came back, and between the various courses of peppery mixtures that go to make up an aristocratic Arab meal, we read him Romans, and told him how the Holy Ghost would come to him and comfort and help him. He is a true soul, we feel sure, but a timid one. When will God call out a leader round whom such can rally ? " The white hen still comes along with us and is such a character. She went on laying an egg faithfully every day, no matter how unpropitious the circumstances. I never saw such an intelligent hen. When she sees any­ thing new to her, as, for instance, a whitewashed room or an artesian well, she walks about with her beak wide open staring at it, and when first she saw a glass window, opening inwards shutterwise, herself reflected in it, after her usual open-mouthed stare she craned her head round it to see if there was really another white hen on the other side. She is'.~absurdly affectionate, too, and never quite happy unless she is being stroked and petted. When Blanche was ill she was supremely happy, and would crawl up towards her shoulder, and lay her long white neck on hers.''

After this itineration Miss Trotter went to England for the summer. The strain of the winter's work had brought her to the verge of a breakdown with heart-trouble and sleeplessness, making a rest-cure necessary. She was unable to return to Algiers before the end of January 1896.

A homeless Stranger amongst us came To this land of death and mourning. He walked in a path of sorrow and shame, Through insult and hate and scorning.

"A man of sorrows," of toil and tears, An outcast man and a lonely: But He looked on me, and through endless years Him must I love, Him only. I. Lilias Trotter

Then from this sad and sorrowing land­ From this land of tears He departed, But the light of His eyes, and the touch of His hand, Had left me broken-hearted.

And I clave to Him as He turned His face From the land that was mine no longer : The land I had loved in the ancient days, Ere I knew the love that was stronger.

And I would abide where He abode, And follow His footsteps for ever : His people my people, His God my God, In the land beyond the river.

And where He died would I also die : Far dearer a grave beside Him, Than a kingly place among living men, In the place which they denied Him. 6 CHAPTER VII

"As the eagle stirreth up her nest ... so the Lord alone did lead them."

"STEAMER from Marseilles to Algiers, January 30th, 1896.-In the morning came the very last touch of winter in the silver dawn breaking over the hoar-frosted land ; by the time I got on board at Marseilles the sun was so hot and dazzling that one could hardly stay on deck. To-day it is all broken lights and shadows. But the light is light and the cloud is cloud, instead of the indefinite haze of dear England-so like the spiritual indefiniteness of so many souls. " I have just come on a paragraph in a weekly paper, Invention, December 21st, 1895, on a new profession that has sprung up in the U.S.A. in the last few years, that of a doctor of machinery. One of the machine doctor's principal uses is ' in synchronizing looms.' It says : ' In a big spinning factory, if all the looms happen to beat together, as sometimes happens, the vibration would be strong enough to bring the building down ; this may be illustrated by the fact of a company of soldiers walking over a bridge ; should they all step together the rhythm of their tramp produces a pendulum swaying of the structure which would soon result in shaking it to pieces.' " The words came with a flood of Heavenly Light : if that is the power of unison in nature, what must be within its reach when it is translated into the Kingdom of Grace ? Now, if we hold together-hold on long enough in the Name which is the keynote of Heaven-a vibration of power will be set up that will end in shaking to pieces the seemingly immovable mass-opposition around us. " As I looked at the horizon there lay, just coming into sight, the faint blue line of the Bouzarea hills that ~ack Algiers. 73 74 I. Lilias Trotter " The priest had approached and spoken with the corning ' nigh unto battle.' " "(Ramadan had begun.) We had a scene ten days ago that made one feel what a Moslem world we are really living in, notwithstanding the French civilization around. A bell began ringing so persistently that we went out to see what was the matter. There was a group of people on the roof below, ringing and shouting. The shouting began to be taken up by the next house and the next, varied by the beating of a drum, and the melancholy cry of the Imam from a far-off mosque. It was an eclipse that was going on, and the moon had just appeared out of a bank of cloud, almost overcast with the lurid shade. It was going to fall down to the earth, they feared, so they were joining their efforts to scare away the demon who was doing the mischief. A lull would come when it passed under another cloud, and the noise would break out when it came out again no better. On~ boy on the next roof was calling on Mohammed in a voice of real terror. I suppose they were more concerned than ever, as it was their all-important Ramadan l\1oon, by which their fast is regulated." . At this time she saw clearly that the converts "must be trained in every way possible to give, and not just to receive ; and it has come as the solution at last of the prob­ lem of years, how to fulfil the commands about not shutting up our compassion from them, without weakening their moral fibre ; they must learn to give as well as we ; that is the plain solution. So we talked it all out in the meeting on Sunday, and as opportunity came in the days that followed, we gave each of them their first bits of work­ things to be responsible for, and started our Sunday col­ lection again-the first two Sundays, towards the expenses of sending Mohammed and Mr. Pope for a few days' itinerating during the time of the feast. "A woman who interests me has turned up. They told me there was a woman in the Arab room, and I went down and found a stranger. " ' Who told you about us ? ' I asked. " ' I _dreamed a dream,' was her answer. ' A man 75 stood by me in a white robe and said to me : " Go and hear about Sidna Aissa." Three times he said it, and I asked, " Where am I to go ? They will not tell about Him in Sidi Abderrahman" (their mosque here), 'and the man said, "Go to Dar Ben Turquia" (the Arab name for our house). So I did my washing, and hung it out to dry, and went to look for Dar Ben Turquia. At last the people said, " Yes, it is down there-the mosque of Sidna Aissa." So I came with great joy and asked at the door, " Is this the mosque of Sidna Aissa ? " And they said, " Yes, go upstairs," and here I have co~e.' "Ahmed's sister Fatima was there-one of those to whom life seems coming this spring, a baby-soul at the best, but she helped with this one and prayed for her. Dear thing, will she be ' illuminated ' ? " Things still look dark and heavy all round. ' But when the clouds be full of rain they empty themselves upon the earth.' It is better to wait as parched ground waits here, for the torrents that will set life going. And I am beginning to see it is out of a low place that one can best believe. ' Great is thy faith ' came to the Syro­ phenician woman who called herself a dog, and to the centurion who held himself unworthy that the Lord should come under his roof. It was to Jacob, halting on his thigh, that the angel said, 'Thou hast power with God.' It is water poured down into a low, narrow channel that can rise into a fountain-Faith that comes from the depths has a spring in it.'' Lily and Blanche arrived in Switzerland for their summer rest. " So tired at first that we hardly knew what to do: with ourselves, and stuck at Brieg for a week, from sheer in­ ability to make up our minds to go anywhere else-. Then we heard of a place, St. Nicholas, in the Zermatt direction, and succeeded in bundling ourselves there, up a cremaillere line which took us to fresher air. I don't think I shall ever forget the watching for the morning next day, with the whole amphitheatre of snow standing in dead white against the dim blue sky ; it came as such a parable of waiting for the sunrise that is coming. To miss the I. Lilias Trotter first touch of rose-colour is to miss the whole. ' Blessed are those that wait for Him.' " " Algiers, October 9th.-Coming back after our rest time there is such a sense that the answer to all the dumb crying is coming down, that it must be chronicled for the sake of those who have fought alongside in prayer, and to the glory of the Name that brings victory. " Up till now the first sight of land has generally brought a sense of heart-sinking that has had to be fought against by a distinct act of faith. One has usually come back out of the spiritual free air of other countries, rather as a diver shuts his eyes and makes his plunge into the darkness. But instead of that, this time, it comes with a bound of joy and hope and a touch of God's presence. For He is there, among those mountains, our Good Shep­ herd, finding His sheep at last." " October I 6th.-The days go by one after another, so full of the Light of His Presence. It is just Jesus-Jesus, and one has only to stand aside and see Him deal with souls. I don't believe the full showers will come down on the people till we are ' with one accord in one place '­ but there are drops. We had our first holiness meetings for the Arabs on Thursday evening, and the prayers were so different : ' Give me a great salvation, not a little salva­ tion.' ' Turn the devil out of the corners of my heart.' " After this, Miss Trotter felt called to gather together the missionaries and workers to wait upon God. In December she writes : " No record has been possible of these weeks, and no words can describe what the Presence of God has been amongst us. ' The mountains flowed down at Thy Pres­ ence '-that sums it up, and we have only had to stand and look on. "Then a busy week of getting ready for a Conference ; first to hold before God the names of all the different mis­ sionaries along the coast, and to get His light as to whom to invite; then to send out invitations, and then to prepare for the houseful it would mean, and send round beds to all the local missionaries who would help to house those from a distance. However, Blanche Haworth managed 77 the 'Martha' part, and was wonderfully helped through it-no small matter with eighteen people in the house and twenty-five or so to meals, and only two native boys. "There were about thirty of us workers among the natives, collected from almost all the stations from Oran on the west to Sousse on the east, a radius of about five hundred miles. " It was wonderful to read the answers to the invita­ tions as they came in. It had seemed as unlikely a week as we could have chosen in the whole year-just when every one was settling down to the .winter's work and everything getting into full swing. Some of them came at two days' notice, one at twelve hours, and then forty­ eight hours in an open cart to get to the train. " There is no describing the meetings ; we were just brought into God's presence, and that was left to do whatever work had to be done. " The keynote all through was Life-' Christ our Life,' for spirit and soul and body, and everything else to be delivered into the place of death. "By the Friday morning the slow Algerian trains were carrying them off east and west, and from far-off places have come such testimonies since of the way that the in­ dwelling Lord is triumphing over the old circumstances that had always brought defeat before-and how the hunger and thirst is waking up in other hearts around the stations. " All points to God having a beautiful plan of blessing to work out for the whole land."

1899 "The year's dawn is not of the brightest,'' she wrote. The little flock was often sore beset, and her anxiety over them deep. The Ramadan battle had come again. Miss Trotter writes : " It was not so much disappointments that tried us those first weeks of the year, as a sense of ' the oppression of the enemy' in the very air, such as I have hardly ever known, and one could literally do nothing but pray at every available bit ; one might take up letters or accounts I. Lilias Trotter that seemed as if they were a ' must be '-but one had to drop them within five minutes, almost invariably, and get to prayer-hardly prayer either-but a dumb crying up to skies of brass. This had begun in a measure almost as soon as we were back from Switzerland, but it intensified now. " In the visiting of the last weeks of the old year, our thoughts and prayers were centred much over two souls. " One was a gentle girl-wife of sixteen or so, named Baia. One day when we were passing along an' impasse' (blind alley), there came a soft call from a tiny window overhead, and there was a glimmer of one of their deli­ cately tinted silk handkerchiefs knotted round a little head, being quickly withdrawn. It was a strong measure for an Arab woman to take if she were respectable, and we doubted for a moment whether to go in, as we did not know the house. But the inward voice seemed to say, ' Go,' and we found this child with a real heart-hunger that had made her brave native rules of etiquette to get us in anyhow next time we passed. Something had filtered to her, second-hand, about a Saviour who could wash sins away, and she wanted to hear more. Such a pathetic little soul she was, torn away from home at fourteen, and married among strangers here in a far-away place. She would sit every time we went to her drinking in every­ thing with her great grey eyes fixed on us. ' The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me,' and, ' Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the world.' Those two verses were her creed. We would hear her repeating them softly to herself, again and again. " Little Baia I We had not thought that this was the answer in store for our prayers. We had hoped much from her; her intelligence was far above the average, for her father had sent her to school as a child. God's thoughts were higher than our thoughts. She was a sensitive soul, who would have suffered greatly in bearing the Cross ; perhaps would have drawn back under the suffering, and He took her almost before she knew that there was any Cross to bear. She passed away suddenly when her baby came. We did not know it till the next day, and it came 79 as a shock ; but there again we could not doubt that she was with Christ. His Name, not Mohammed's, was on her Ii ps to the last. " The other soul called out during those weeks was a young fellow whom we had known for some years. He had been a scapegrace and we had lost sight of him, though we had kept up acquaintance with his little son Ali, now a sturdy boy of eight or nine, who always rushed up to shake hands when we passed in the street. The young man's health had been ruined during his wild life, and now, when we found him again, he was far gone in consumption. From the first day he stretched out his hands to Christ. He used to watch for us with touching eagerness, and one could see the light come in as the bodily life went out. One little picture of the Good Shepherd was always under his pillow, night and day. At last the day came when he knew himself to be in His arms. Not many days after that the end came. There was no ' witness ' to Mohammed -only a dumb clinging to the newly found Jesus, shown by faint signs and nods as speech failed. We believe that he is safe with Him-' A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench.' " Through all these little bits of openings came echoing the words of Jesus, ' The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do.' He is beginning to show us that the first move must come from His side, with ours to co-operate, not the other way. He must take the initiative. It has taken a long time to learn.'' " May 8th.-Another joy I Y amina had a negress neighbour in the same house with her two or three years ago, whom she used to evangelize, and in a dim way she received the ' Light of Life '-such a very dim way that we hardly counted her among the women who believed. She had drifted out of sight. But the other day she came to beg me to visit her husband, who had been seized by rapid consumption. Helen asked about his soul. ' He believes,' she answered, with a ring of triumph in her voice. ' I have told him all I knew ; Jesus has come into his heart I' " We went to see him and found it was so. The poor So I. Li1ias l'rottet dark wasted face was alight and aglow, though never a word had he had to help him except the little fragments his wife could tell him. We do praise God. " I looked into a little shop opposite the house where they are lodging. The Frenchwoman who kept it began talking about them. ' They are good people,' she said ; ' they know the things of God. Little Suliman gets the boys together and shows them his picture-book, and tells them about the Evangile ; they all seem so happy, ill and poor as they are.' " "July 14th [Her birthday].-This afternoon we ended with a party on the roof ; we were eight nationalities­ English, French, Jewish, Arab, Kabyle, Negro, Maltese, Swiss. Old Aissha, who represented the Sudan, was resplendent in her attire and very decorative, and her heart has been so softened Christwards since her wonderful escape from falling masonry." This month Lilias went to Blida for a few days in a burning sirocco : " The hills were standing in dim madder in the sunset and the moon rising in the opal sky above. The night beat anything I have ever known for heat ; the only relief was to get up again and again from the top of our beds, which burned like an oven under one, and sit with feet and hands in a basin of water. "We were up and out by seven, and had a good time visiting till 8.30 ; by then the heat was so oppressive that it was no use struggling on.'' Their holiday was near. " The house was full all day, the dear women coming one after another, sitting about, even in our bedrooms while we packed. We never had such a loving good-bye ; outside was a little crowd of children, with Arabs, Jews, and Jewesses waiting to see the last of us.'' From Switzerland she writes : "The milky-looking glacier torrent spoke with God's votce this morning, so obedient to its course in its narrow bed, and yet just tossing with freedom and swing in every motion ; such a picture of the ' rivers of living water­ bound and yet unbound.' 81 " Another river-lesson has come with the words, ' His voice was as the sound of many waters.' I have never noticed before how small a thing will check the voice of the torrent; a rock, a bush even intervening, will dull it from a thunder of power into a mere whisper, where all the harmony of its multitude of tones is deadened and lost. Oh, we want to live where not one of the undertones of His voice is stifled or lost ! " " August I oth.-We have come to the very heart of the mountains ; six thousand feet with all it means of snowy air and little blue gentians and utter stillness. It is a wonderful gift to have such a holiday, feeling well all the time. I take it as a promise from God of a good hard winter's work before us, with gathered forces of life and strength. " ' I will open rivers in bare heights,' was His word, as we got up and up into the high valley, the land of gentian and primula up above and away, where all is its barest, above the level of the trees ; it was all glistening with little streams set in brown moss and huge golden marsh marigolds. "To-day's first lesson was the little mountain paths. I followed one only a few yards farther this morning, and such an outburst of beauty came ; you can never tell to what untold glories any humble path may lead, if you follow far enough. " The second was when I got there. The sun was ,rising behind the huge glacier which stood in the dim blue against a paler blue sky. The huge pyramid of the Dent Blanche, out of sight, cast its shadow athwart it ; pinnacle after pinnacle of ice caught the brilliance as the sun rose behind it, in some places, while in others there were stretches of reflected light from unseen snow-fields beyond. Oh, the difference, in parable and in reality, between the stretches of light that reach us second-hand and the gleams that come, pure and radiant, from the unveiled face of Jesus. " There is one of the little lowly paths that I so love, beginning down the valley and going on there a long way, then up a steep zigzag that seems to block everything, and then to such a gateway to the glory of the hills." I. Lilias Trotter

" Lo, by slow small footsteps, By the daily cross, By the heart's unspoken yearning, By its grief and loss, So He brings them home to rest With the Victors crowned and blest.

So, 0 weary pilgrim, 'Tis the Master's way, And it leadeth, surely, surely, Unto endless day. Doubt not, fear not, gladly go­ He will bring thee homeward so." TOLGA, 1900-1901 " I WAS busy in London working ; all was prospering, with God's blessing, and I had no thought but to spend my life there. The whole missionary subject seemed to me rather dull, and was altogether beyond my horizon. But I had two friends with whom I was thrown a good deal just then, and they had both of them taken to heart the outer darkness. I do not remember that they said anything to me personally about it, but one felt it right through them; they were all aglow, and after a bit, though I took no more personal interest in the matter than before, I began to feel they had a fellowship with Jesus that I knew nothing about. I did love Him, and I did not like to be out in the cold over it, so I began to pray : ' Lord, give me the fellowship with Thee about the heathen that Thou hast given to those two.' " It was not many weeks before it began to come-a strange yearning love over those who were ' in the land of the shadow of death,' a feeling that Jesus could speak to me about it, and that I could speak to Him; that a great barrier between me and Him had been broken down, and swept away. I had no thought of leaving England then, no thought even at first of trying to stir others at home, but straight as a line God made my way out into the darkness, before eighteen months were over, and through Eternity I shall thank God for the silent flame in the hearts of those two friends and what they did for me. Neither of them has ever had their path opened into foreign work, but the light of the Day that is coming will show what He has let them do in kindling others." From Smouldering, by I. LILIAS TROTTER. CHAPTER VIII

TOLGA, 1900-1901

N 1900 I went to Algiers with my friend, Miss Synge. It was proposed we should go to Rue du Croissant, butI this was negatived by Miss Trotter, whose letter shows that, though she had never admitted it, she and her fellow­ workers endured hardness there. She wrote: " Our spare room is dark and cheerless, and only fit to be inhabited for a few days, sun and light being essential here to health. Moreover, an Arab house in the native quarter is not what the doctors mean when they say, ' Go to Algiers.' The air here is so relaxing and generally breathed up, and bad; even other missionaries who come all say they are thankful they do not live here. The house, being native, is both damp and draughty. Till the real spring comes, the court, on to which all the rooms open, is drenched whenever it rains, and there are no fireplaces." I shall never forget my first impression of that narrow street where Miss Trotter dwelt ; a dust-storm was blow­ ing, and we were nearly blinded by it as we entered the narrow Rue du Croissant : dust, dirty papers, and rubbish flying all round, it looked utterly squalid. But when the door of No. 2 opened and we saw her standing there, tall and white, but with such a glow of love and welcome, all else was forgotten, and the Arab house, with its graceful white pillars and open court, seemed a fitting place for her to work and pray, so lit up was it with love and faith. How pale and worn she looked as she stood with arms stretched out to welcome us, but with such an intense look of eager vitality and expectation, the spirit triumphant over the body. Her generosity to others was boundless, but on herself she spent as little as possible, as is shown by this letter, thanking me for a pan of sap-green paint I had sent her : " It is sweet of you to send me the sap-green. I feel 85 , 86 I. Lilias Trotter so set up at having him again, and such a reward of virtue in not getting him before. I did not know how I was going to do without him." And she had given me a splendid box of paints when she was in England, going and choosing the special paints herself. To her a paint-box meant such possibilities of joy and beauty. It was settled that we, i.e. Lily, Miss Freeman, Miss Synge, and I, should all four travel together to Biskra, from whence Miss Freeman and she would go south. It was a wonderful journey, Lily enjoying it with the free heart of a child. We seemed to be back in the old days of fun and laughter, in delight at the wonderful revelations of strange beauty around us. Never shall I forget one evening when we were all supposed to be resting, her coming to me and telling me of a dance being held in a negro village. In a few minutes we were walking across the desert sands. At the gate a huge negro, evidently a friend of hers, met us and ushered us into a strange scene -a courtyard lit up with lamps, where a crowd of brightly dressed negro men and women were swaying to and fro in a wild, weird dance. How plainly I see her sitting there with a look of amusement, which changed into one of yearning love as she watched them ; her restful, dignified pose such a contrast to their wild gestures. Lily wrote describing this journey : "April 2nd.-Off at last, with such a gladness of heart . . : and to-day came the joy of setting our faces due south again, Blanche Pigott and Miss Synge with us after all these five years' waiting. It was lovely to see the bare line of the hills cut off, as we steamed slowly over the highest level and then plunged down to the basin of El Kantara, with the blue-green of the palm trees and dear, sun-dried houses. Then the desert hills took on their pink and blue afternoon lights and shadows, and for one moment the glory of sunset flashed out between the showers, shading the desert from the mauve of the distant hills to the flame­ colour of the cliffs of the river-bed in the foreground, a cloud of colour that is simply indescribable and unimaginable.'' Tolga, 1900-1901 Miss Albina Cox joined our party at Biskra, and soon the three left to go south. Journal, April I 3th. A desert village : "Here we are. 'Oh, that the power that Jesus promised should come down I' A Sheikh came up in a scarlet cloak with many followers, and we went off with him to an empty house which he had commandeered for us. " They at once set to work to clean and decorate it with bright handkerchiefs they bought in the market, and pitched their tents in the court-one tent to sleep in and the other to receive the natives. The latter they had to en­ large with rough native coverings as the crowds of listeners grew and grew. Journal: " By the time all was done the dear people had brought us two bowls of wholemeal couscous, peppery with real desert pepperiness. Soon after we were in our hammocks. Oh, the joy of feeling the swing again I " The next day they were followed from the market by a body of men for the morning meeting, about eighteen listening intently till nearly twelve o'clock. Journal: " At three-thirty back came the men in a troop, two or three great men among them, and moon-faced lads of sixteen and seventeen, from the noble families, with fault­ lessly folded headgear, and spotless gandouras, and dove­ coloured burnouses of the finest cloth. " On Sunday we had had a sweet little set of girls first, such darlings, over forty of them, and they stayed from ten till twelve-thirty. " We were hardly up from our siesta when a stately son of the Sheikh came back with a group of lads, and of course we could not refuse him. Soon the door was besieged, and more men than ever came and stayed nearly to sunset. Oh, how they listen ! " Such a full moon to-night, perfectly glorious on the thick palm tree that rustles over our wall, with that sharp rustle that one so loves. There has been a blessed sense of being one with the whole family in earth and heaven, 7 88 I. Lilias Trotter right away from everything that makes an outward Easter." "Monday.-Nearly fifty in again this morning, the bulk of them always the same. It is good to see them sit listening and listening, just saying, now and then, 'Thus far we follow you. We do not quite understand this.' " I don't think there is anything quite like the joy of getting back to these desert villages, and of having for three weeks the longing of my heart to be living in a real native house down on the level of the natives, so that they come in and out promiscuously-now a couple of women with their thick woollen plaits, now a troop of girlies in all the colours of the rainbow, now a set of boys sitting as still as can be. " For the first time this evening we got a turn to where you can see the irregular line of palm trees against the drab blue of the eastern sky, the old gold walls and sand­ hills catching the western sky, the dark brown silhouette of a camel here and there. Oh, how I love it I And this morning has come a wonderful sense that God might let us have a winter station here. I hardly dare dwell on it. I had begun to think that any living down here must wait for the time when the Lord is King, but perhaps these five years, when we have been shut out of the south country, has been the passing of death, and that now His hands are free. How beautiful it would be ! " Such a sudden sense this morning that God has given us this place in which to set up His banners, and that we have only to accept it by faith and go forward. " We share our lodging with a ragged little donkey ; he has twice found his way into our room, and made for our couscous water-bucket. " I have been taking all the measurements of the room against next winter. It is getting very hot, and the scorpions are coming out. I trod on one last night in my flat native slipper. Within a month all the well-to-do people will have gone to camp on the tablelands." She was very knocked up when she returned to Algiers, but wrote to me : " Those days at Biskra will always be a joy to look Tolga, 1900-1901 back to, and it is so nice to think you know this house and all the dear people in it. I have had two letters from 'the son of the glorious one.'" In August she went to England, and after attending the Keswick Convention, and spending a fortnight alone in Cornwall, she went with her sister to St. Moritz. " It is all like a new sight ... the whole of this wonderful fantastic frost-world, with its dreamlike creations ; another side, as it were, of the infinite mind of Him by whom all things were created, and precious for that, as well as for its own strange beauty. , "We have taken to ski-ing for exercise. It looks delightfully like flying when you have got past the pre­ liminaries of getting tangled up in your six-foot shoes. Margaret may arrive at it before she leaves, but I don't suppose I shall." " December 17th.-I am off to-morrow. It seems hardly possible that one will be among palms and orange trees the day after leaving people here to the long, long winter." 1901 " Ramadan is not, somehow, the terrible weight and struggle it has so often been in times past. Most of the Christians seem battling through more bravely this year. We hope the way may open for Blanche and me to go down to the villages, whence they sent invitations to us last year just as we had to return to Algiers." "Blida, January 7th.-Blanche and I came off with great hope in our hearts that the years of waiting and praying for an opening in this place are come to an end, and that it is going to be given us. Six of us is too many in Algiers, when one weighs the comparative need of other places. " It is lovely to see the unfolding of God's purpose and answer. It must be ten years now since the burden of this place began to gather, and till the last two or three years it has seemed as hard as nails. Now at every door a head stretches out with, ' Come again and see us.' " Oh, to learn how to fight through the battle in the heavenly places till the day comes-to a~tempt the I. Lilias Trotter impossible, to expect the impossible; it comes back to that." Algiers.-The next weeks were full of conflict and victory, for three converts and the little waifs kept coming under their roof to be cared for. Little Aisha was a great joy to Lilias. She writes : " I was rolling her up in her red native haik on the mat by my bed to-night when she asked me suddenly, 'Do you know how much I love you?' 'No,' I said; ' is it very much ? ' ' Yes.' And the brown arms were stretched out wide. ' I love you as big as the whole house, the whole court, the whole roof, and the whole stairs­ that is how I love you.' Precious little soul ! she sleeps on that mat with many dreams going on in that quick brain." Unscrupulous people were also endeavouring to get the child away from her. Lilias was summoned before the Commissaire, and, as she walked back, Boualim was waiting for her, and asked : " Is it all right ? " She says : " It gave such a sense of standing by one and of brotherhood. I said, ' We are in the same boat.' He said, 'Yes, it's all the work of the devil.' He, poor fellow, was also before the Cadi, accused by false witnesses, his wife having been drugged by his enemies." "May 2oth.-lt seems, looking back over this last winter and spring, as if the fresh tide of prayer that God has been giving has only served as yet to waken all these powers of darkness against us, while as yet in the upper world there is hardly a stir. " But I think that is often the case. The powers of evil feel the shock of the battle that has been reawakened in the heavenly places by our cry down here, and set them­ selves to hinder the fresh tide of victory that is freed, as with Daniel. Their stirring is the first thing we are con­ scious of. It is so in our inner experiences very often, and in our prayers for individuals, so it is likely to come true on a larger scale." "June 2nd.-To-day I went back to a house where the Mullah had turned me out last week, almost before I had set foot in it, saying she would hear nothing of Jesus. Tolga, 1900-1901 91 Strangely, I had forgotten it. When I went in her first words were, 'I sent you away last week. I was very wrong. Jesus came to me that night and frightened me. I dared not open my eyes to look at Him. He said, " Why did you not listen ? You must listen." His hand was on me. He would have suffocated me, if I had not feared, and I said, " I have had enough ; I will listen now." ' And listen she did. "Many such things are with Him. And if the devil has new resources, He has more. Hallelujah ! "

To Miss K., on receiving a box of dolls, June I Ith, 1901.

" RuE ou CROISSANT. " What a delight they will be ! I only wish you could be here and hear the shrieks of joy. They will be so beautiful for the little prizes ; they have just come at the very best time. B. Haworth and I are keeping one each for our own, to lend to the little native girls when they come to spend the day, as they do sometimes when their parents are in trouble. "It is such a joy that the book of New Testament extracts is out at last, and to see how the people enjoy it and understand it thoroughly. Batch after batch is going off this week to missionaries at Constantine, at Cherchell and Bizerte, and with a French colporteur into the moun­ tains round Tablatt and Aumale and Kabylia." June 30th. ( On their going away for the summer) : " Our last day, and a good one, a joyous winding-up meeting for the Arabs, all joining hands and singing, ' Follow, follow,' Helen linking the two sides of the curtain by holding Belaid's hand on one side and Fatima's on the other. Fatima went upstairs radiant. 'Never, never have we had a meeting of such joy.' " We left with the usual beloved group of women standing tearful in the court, having waited hours for a passing word and a last good-bye." They spent their holiday in Switzerland. On her return to Algiers, Miss Trotter wrote : 92 I. Lilias Trotter " October 2oth.-Back at last to the dear house ; and such a welcome! The joy of our new girl-helper fresh from 'The Olives.' My dear black kitten Aisha running tame about the house merrier and sweeter than ever, and more 1ovmg . .... " " November I 6th.-Such a joy has come ; two days ago a great burden of prayer for a bit over Tolga. I felt the decision was probably being taken, and so it proved. A letter has come, saying that the Sheikh is ready to find us a house. This is a bigger gladness than words can say." She and Miss Haworth again went south. " ' Ye shall go forth with joy and be led forth with peace' was Blanche's verse, to come away with, and it has been true. My verse all the way along was that about the Ark of the Lord going before to search out a resting­ place ; such feeling that this was different from our former Journeys, and that it means a foothold down here for God, and we found it literally true. For instead of a long hunt in the twilight, through possible and impossible places, Abdulla brought us straight here, saying, ' It seems to us this is the right place for you.' Such a beautiful room for men, opening to what would be in England the village green, only green there is none ! We cannot but feel that this is the place that the Ark of the Covenant has found for us. The men have been here to-day, crowds of them, with the same spirit of silent listening as last year ; and such welcomes as we went down the village street I " In the evening we went outside towards the east, where the first scattered palms stand alone, or in tiny groups, ' outposts ' again ; but meaning that the forest is behind them ; the first trickle of the water means the stream farther on, the first solitary souls mean that Pentecost is coming. Hallelujah I " TRACT-WRITING AND TRANSLATING, 1902-1904

93 CHAPTER IX

TRACT-WRITING AND TRANSLATING, 1902-1904

ANUARY 1st, 1902. In the south: . " The brightest New Year's day there has been for J a long time. Such a sense of the ' Pattern showed in the Mount ' long ago beginning to be worked out by Him who gave it, outposts to which to' go and come and interchange, and workers 'off the soil ' coming into the battle." They had to leave suddenly. " A burden of sorrow and heartbreak, and yet we feel the year's message has been given, and it may be that they could bear nothing more as yet. Only it seems to wrench our hearts to leave them ; they listen on in silence. This evening we hung our two hurricane lamps on the palm pillars, and between them was a circle of dark earnest faces, as the men sat on the mat eagerly grasping the books and drinking in intently. " Twenty or thirty crowded in for one more reading, and we read the story of the Sower and asked them what they were going t0 do with the seed that God had showered down on them these last weeks ? " More gathered round the carriage, and great brown hands were outstretched for a grasp in silence. A few minutes more and we were away among the scattering palms that had spoken to us coming in, and were plough­ ing our way through the deep soft sand. Abdulla, who followed us as soon as he could get camels for our tents, etc., says that they all said to him, ' Bring them back, bring them back ! ' The old woman that brought our bread cried when she took away the battered pail that we left her for a legacy, and begged to bring him his dinner ; for the bread itself she would take nothing. She is an Algiers woman. ' I am a stranger, and you are strangers ; I made it for your faces I ' " 95 I. Lilias Trotter The work went on, souls were enlightened and full of hope, but one after another they were taken away by rela­ tions who had power over them. Miss Trotter wrote : " So we let A. go into the care of the Good Shepherd who loves him, and will not quench the spark that is there, 'dimly burning' though it be. It is hands off for us ; His are safer for the handling of the delicate workmanship of the souls that He has made. " An underground movement is going on among the people, we cannot doubt. R.'s brother sits reading till late at night and sleeps with his Testament under his pillow ; and if he does not bring it along to read at his cafe, the men send him back to fetch it. So their mother told Helen, and she dropped her voice to a significant whisper, and said,' There are many men who want to hear now.' One woman said, ' I can only listen to you in secret, but Jesus is in my heart always.' " I was waiting in Taitum's house the other day ; an unknown woman was sitting on the winding stair. 'Come and tell me about Jesus.' I sat down beside her. 'What do you know about Him ? ' ' I know very little. I know once He found a sheep that was lost.' She sat as if spell­ bound in that bare direct action of the Holy Ghost on her spirit which does turn light into life.'' "May 27th.-Things on the human side have never looked more serious, but on the divine side ' the things that happen shall turn to the furtherance of the Gospel.' We can accept no defeat." " Algiers, Rue du Croissant, June 2oth.-It is a perfect age since I have written. If you could see the poor fat bundle of 'Immediate' you would know why. I am writing from my hammock on the roof under a white oleander just coming into flower. Our last new Arab girlie, aged three, has been doing a pretence couscous alongside till just now, when she has gone down for her coffee. So letters will get on a bit quicker. Such a glum little thing she was when her father brought her here to us, three or four months ago ; her stepmother wanted to be rid of her, as no Arabs would take her because her mother was a Jewess. Her face is all alight now with Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904 97 love and merriment, and she is full of native quickness and imagination ; you should see what she does with half a dozen matches for playthings. " It is such a refreshing to have a baby thing about again, and I have had time to enjoy her lately, having been hors de combat these last five or six weeks, since a sharp turn of influenza." " July 2nd.-More than ever this year we have sights of the deliberate power of the devil around us. The moral filth that lies on all sides comes into view in directions we had never imagined, even right down among the small children ; they are sunk in it. All the outward ways in which the powers of evil are invoked-the spells, the sorceries, and witchcraft-come to light more and more as we get contact with the people. No wonder that the very air seems impregnated with devilry, and that the sense of knowing him as the adversary has been keener than ever before, and a counter-move ready for every move God makes. More and more we come across strange, weird cases of illness brought on by anger, which seem more like cases of possession than anything else." Miss Trotter went to England utterly tired out, and spent some .months at Crowborough, returning to Algiers in October. Terrible things were happening there: two of the Christian women-poor little brides of fifteen and seventeen on!y-had been cruelly done to death by a slow-working poison. The effect of drugs which wrought such havoc amongst those " who did run well " is described in a letter to Dr. Zwemer:

I. L. TROTTER To REv. SAMUEL ZwEMER, D.D. " . . . Alas, nothing comes to me that would be very inspiring over our' Apostates from Islam.' Here they have suffered morally. I have seen a look of dumb agony over the severance of family ties, but there is nothing that can be called persecution. We have had three or four cases of having to relinquish rights of property ; that is all so I. Lilias Trotter far as definite loss goes ; the rest is just nagging and bully­ ing or coaxing, as the case may be. " We feel that the danger that they run here is of a worse order. All around them is risk of brain-drugs and spells and hypnotism, and we have come to the conclusion that a large proportion of seeming backsliding of converts may be traced to these combined influences, for I cannot but think that spells (i.e. definite Satanic influences invoked and brought to bear) have their part in the havoc wrought. As regards the physical side of the attempt, we think, from comparing notes on symptoms with a missionary from India, that Datura is largely used for drugging ; but whatever the drug may be, it is well known in their domestic intrigues, and can be administered unnoticed in food or drink. It seems to excite the emotions and paralyse the will-power. According to the description that we have had from one poor soul after another, a great darkness comes over their spirits and lasts for several months before it wears away ; they feel, meanwhile, that they cannot come near us or have anything to do with us. " A girl convert, in one of our stations, who had walked faithfully with Christ for years, fell last spring under the power of a sorceress who, we believe, was sent by the girl's elder brother to live in the house, on purpose to turn her from us. Suddenly she would have nothing to do with us. ' She knows all my thoughts to the bottom of my heart, and I have to do as she tells me,' was her ex­ planation for refusing all intercourse. In answer to prayer the woman was got out of the house, but the cloud on the girl's spirit is only now beginning to lift. " Another story comes to my mind that may seem incredible, but was told me by the missionary concerned, who fought and died in the ranks of N.A.M., with a passion for souls that few have shared. One of the converts in her solitary station was a young fellow of good family. All went well with him for a time, then, suddenly, he left off coming to the Mission House, and all touch was lost except round by Heaven. The winter came, and the workers were clearing out the fireplace when they caught sight of this man's name on a bit of paper. They smoothed Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904 99 it out and deciphered it. It proved to be a charm written to prevent his setting foot in the house, or having anything to do with the missionaries. They prayed, in the name of Jesus, that the evil spell might be broken, and burnt the paper. Within an hour the convert was back in that room, bowed and broken-hearted, confessing to God his backsliding. Later on he told the missionary that he knew he had been drugged, and that he had shrunk, with a shrinking that amounts to hatred, from the thought of coming near the mission. " I cannot but feel this is a matter that we should study from all its aspects, and that we should learn to put a definite prayer-guard round the converts in this direction, and to learn the delivering power of the cross of Jesus and His Almighty name, when they are entrapped. So far as we have seen, when ·they are walking in the light up to their measure, the attempts have failed to take effect, or soon worked off; but when the soul is already weakened by some compromise it falls an easy prey. I send this for what it is worth for publication, but I am glad of the chance of unburdening my heart to you about it." Dr. Zwemer, when sending the above letter, wrote the following appreciation :

"KANTARAT EL DEKKA, CAIRO. " My best impression of her life could be expressed in two words-it was a life of Vision and a life of Prayer. "Her eyes seemed ever looking upward, and also gazed below the surface of things. She was indiscourage­ able in happiness and steadfast in faith, and was an embodi­ ment of her own expression, ' The Glory of the Impossible.' Personally, I owe very much to her missionary messages, which were my inspiration and comfort in the early days of pioneering work in Arabia. I am sure the influence of her life will not soon die out."

" November 2nd.- ... For nearly a month I have been knocked up, as you know. You are the only one of my friends who can sympathize with me. It has been 100 I. Lilias Trotter rather sad not to be down for the start of things, but I can see God's hand in it in more ways than one, and that is all that matters." "January 1st, 1903.-This has been a busy week with Christmas trees-four days' running-for the Kabyle boys, then the Arab boys, then the little French girls, and, lastly, the bigger girls and their parents ; about thirty were here each night. " I forget if I wrote about a man named Mohammed ; he began coming to the night-school and then to the men's class, but illness was already on him, and he has been sinking fast. He is the husband of M.; she and her mother-in-law have grown and strengthened in faith ; his patience and unselfishness in his great suffering is beautiful." Lily and Miss Freeman went away for a few days' rest, and he sent a message to them : "Tell her I am happy, and Sidna Aissa is in my heart." " A sudden change came and he was gone. The one name, ' Sidna Aissa,' was on his lips, the women said, to the last moment : no witness to Mohammed, which they are all taught to believe is the passport into heaven for the dying. It is lovely to think of him, our first one safe home." Light came amongst the shadows. " Roukia's brother-in-law has gone home in great peace. With his failing breath, hardly able to articulate the words, he repeated over and over, ' I love Jesus a thousand times a thousand times.' Then as the end came, with a wonderful shining in his face, ' The gate of heaven is open-I enter in-Jesus,' and he was gone. " It is better so-oh, infinitely better I It used to make me sad when God saved them just to die. Now I can only rejoice that their training for the work of eternity is being carried on by God Himself, in the quiet of His haven. Till a tide of the Holy Ghost comes down on this poor wicked land there seem such fearful odds against them. Even for the little children one loves, one can only be glad if He takes them. It would be a relief to see Aisha's little grave, rather than know that her dear bright little Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904 101 soul is getting more steeped in pollution every week that she is kept away from us ; but He is the God of the living, and the living shall praise Him. " Things seem without a lift on the human side, but God keeps up our hope in Him for His ·sequel. In face of the bleak sky and cold wind, four little snowdrop buds have sat for the last two or three days with their chins on the earth, and now, to-day, one of them has reared itself up,. pure,. and fearless, on its stalk, with all the promise of spring. " March 4th.-Now a conclave of Rabbis have decided to station watchers outside every class and meeting to which Jews-men, women, or children-go, warning them away. For the time being they have, of course, all dropped away. It is as if all the powers were being let loose to stamp out the little spark of light." She and Miss Haworth went up to Blida on March 9th, and spent happy days amongst the villages. Tucked away in the folds of the hills below the outskirts of the cedar forest, group after group of dear crimson-robed women with children, dimly lighted souls, gathered to listen. So they went on and on, up and down the steep paths of loose shale where the mules could scarcely get a footing, finding some souls dark and limited, others strangely awake, in spite of their shut-in lives-places where no European is ever seen, and where multitudes would be willing and glad to hear. Soon they had to return to Algiers, to find still a state of blockade on their house. " May I 3th.-We have had a great joy to-day in the baptism of Belaid. He arrived at 7.30 with his wife, and gradually the others gathered. . . . Ahmed came carrying a great bunch of golden iris that grow wild here. He put them on the table, saying, ' They are like God, see '-pointing to the three large petals-' the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these '-touching the three small petals-' are the witnesses.' " Then we went outside the city walls where Ahmed was baptized a year ago. Belaid was grand, so simple and fearless of consequences, and so gentle and tender with his wife. That simplicity comes out in everything. 102 I. Lilias Trotter His prayers are like this : ' Thank you very much, Lord Jesus. 0 God, give me strength. I believe in Jesus Christ. Amen." "Sunday, May 22nd.-This is a day to be remembered, for we felt that now that there were two who can be gathered in His Name, we ought to have a Sunday morning service in Arabic, distinct from the afternoon Bible class. M. Cuendet, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Lochhead came, and four Christian Arabs. Oh, these little beginnings ; no one can fancy the joy of them who has not lived in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. " A new little waif has joined the girls' class. Her fair hair and skin showing the truth of what the other children say, that she is 'roumia' (European descent). Blanche's heart has gone out to her; she feels so the terrible­ ness of European children losing their birthright, and being dragged down into the mire of Arab life. We have never forgotten the pathetic look of that lost birthright on a woman's face at Medea years ago, and this spring we came across such a lovely Madonna-faced girl of sixteen with the same story, deserted among them as a baby and knowing no other life." She had hoped to stay on till July, but failure of sleep­ ing powers decided her to go off to Switzerland. She wrote: " It is never long before God begins to speak when one gets away to His unspoilt world."

" Algiers, January I st, I 904.-Before the day was far on, up ran Mohammed with a shining face. Jesus had come to him in a dream and shown him two doors, the doors of Heaven and Hell, and asked him which he would like to go in. ' I said the door of Heaven. He said, " I must wash you before you can enter that door." I said, "Lord, wash me." And I woke.' And, in his simple way, he knelt and gave himself to the Lord." Two of the workers were starting off on their first tenting expedition, and she rejoiced in finding all the needful things from her own camp outfit, and sending them to the longed-for places. Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904 103 She felt it a carrying out of the summer's lesson of the old trees, seeing all set aside to give place to the young life around. " God is making it such a joy," she said. Journal continued : " It has come to me so strangely to pray for five new helpers-four women and a man; alongside comes another prayer, as curiously definite, for five towns out of those we have visited. It is a prayer as sharply marked out as it possibly can be. I put it down, too, against the time when the answer is visible. " A big outcome of Mr. Summers', visit is settling to have St. Luke, St. John, and Acts in Algerian colloquial. It will be wonderful that at last God will have His oppor­ tunity of speaking unhindered. The books are to be lithographed in their own beautiful writing, another great attraction. We want to have it all as native-looking as possible: their own rough creamy paper and marginal lines and flap covering, all of the lightest weight that can be, for long journeys. Oh, praise God I ,, The weeks passed by and she could do nothing without coming to the end of her strength, but she did not feel she could ask for strengthening, but only for fresh anoint­ ing for whatever new service the quiet months were meant to bring. "He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all may know His work." That was the word that came to her again and again about it. " March 3 1 st.-' Prayer is the sluice-gate between my soul and the Infinite.' I came on those words of Tenny­ son's the other day, and they come back again and again to-day with a special sense of the reality ; the asking in the name of Jesus for this and that village and town of those dear unreached and unreachable mountains and deserts, does set the sluice-gates open to them. The powerlessness to go gives an intensity to the joy of it. One can stand in spirit among the dear mud-houses of Tolga, and the domed roofs of Souf, and the horseshoe arches of Tozeur, and the tiled huts buried in prickly­ pear hedges in the hills, and bring down the working of the Holy Ghost, ' by faith in that Name,' perhaps more effectively than if one were bodily there. One can shut 8 104 I. Lilias Trotter the door, as it were, and stand alone with God as one cannot on the spot, with the thronging outward distractions of the visible." " May 6th.-In all the outward withholdings of this year God, as is His wont, opens a door where He closes a window-the door being these Arabic tracts. The love of Arab story-telling ought to be used (as Miss Van Sommer said) to get a hearing, and to get a hearing is much easier by ink and paper than by the living voice. The outcome has been that a good many of the working hours this winter and spring have gone to writing and translating and printing, on the two machines that Helen got for the purpose." One tract was brought out every month and dis­ tributed in the town, thus facilitating the difficult work of evangelizing. The next year, 1905, many of these tracts were pub­ lished at the Nile Mission Press, Cairo, then just starting. Lilias and Miss Haworth spent the summer at Michelet instead of returning to England, and she wrote : "July Ist.-We left Algiers lying in murky heat, and the train crept out into the clear country air and through the cork forests of the plain. Such a glowing, cherry­ coloured sunset ! It is beautiful to be getting away here instead of the weary traverse and long train of other years." "Back at Algiers, a red-letter day. F. brought in our little Aisha, and oh, the joy of it I her face is pure and bright, and· her heart as full of fun and full of love as ever ; so wonderful when one knows the depths of sur­ rounding sin that she has lived in. Such an answer from the Good Shepherd. . . . "

To B. A. F. P. "December 10th. " Arabic tract-writing has taken up such a deal of time this autumn. God has been giving one and another of us the stories faster than we can write them. . . . Letter­ writing has been further stopped by our new housemaid. • • . You know we wanted a very superior one (our little Tract-Writing and Translating, 1902-1904 105 Swiss, Elsa, having left us), and we meant to have one, regardless of expense, who really knew her work and could take charge of things without being looked after. We asked on all sides-France, Switzerland, and England. " Instead of which, God's choice for us is a wild young negress, such a picture in her pale blue drapery and golden­ yellow silk headgear. She was captured by the Arabs in the Sudan, years ago, and brought to Southern Algeria and sold as a slave. (Slavery is, of course, prohibited there and here, but carried on secretly.) There she married another Sudanese, working in, the same house. He came here last winter, brought by Belaid. This autumn, Chira escaped by night to the French authorities and claimed her freedom, and made her way half to Algiers, whence Ali fetched her, and now has placed her under our care. She fights along very patiently in all the battles that Satan tries for getting her back, sometimes for two or three hours the poor thing writhing and beating the wall, at times like a mad creature, while we can only stand by and call on the name of Jesus for victory. When it comes, it is quite suddenly, and her spirit is clear and happy as a child. She is such a dear wild thing, you would love her. Pray for a great salvation to come to her.-Your loving "I. L. T." DAR NAAMA, EL-BIAR, 1905 and 1906 < ~ < z< CHAPTER X

DAR NAAMA, EL-BIAR, 1905 AND 1906

" Manifold more in this present life, houses and lands, with persecution." ILIAS writes : "January 19th, 1905.-The doctor has put rather a stopperL on, by sending me to bed and keeping me as much as possible on one floor ; in one way, it is rather a relief to give up the fight to keep about that it has been lately, and it means time for prayer." She was rejoicing in the thought of colporteurs on the march to Tolga, and writes : " It was beautiful to wake this morning and know that it would be once more a day of visitation there. ' We will triumph in Thy victory, and in the name of our God will we set up our banners.' One can set them up just as really, perhaps better, than if there bodily, and who can tell what it means in the unseen world that those two men, in outward deed, and we here, in faith, hoist them once more after the seeming defeat of three years ago." "March 2nd.-The revision of St. Luke into Algerian colloquial is coming out of the region of hope into reality. Mr. Summers, Mr. Smith of Constantine, Miss Day, Helen, and I have started on Dr. Nystrone's translation, and are working at it six or seven hours a day. Helen brought home the first few pages : the translation is so good in its clearness and its rhythm." " March I oth.-God has been showing me, not as a matter of theory, but of practical experieJ11ce, the meaning of Rom. viii. 1o ; at any rate, one meaning, the absolute apartness of the spirit from the body even now. (The whole passage is much lit up by the R.V., which gives 'spirit' in every instance when it is not the Spirit of God.) When one's body is like a log and one's thoughts can only flutter about aimlessly, like moths in the twilight of one's brain, one's spirit can go straight as a line through the precious Blood into the Holiest, and meet God there, un- 109 IIO I. Lilias Trotter hindered by any drag of bodily incapacity. ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' " "April 27th.-The eighth day of the Passover and the streets full of little green sheaves of the first-fruits, just tiny handfuls of fresh green barley hawked about for a halfpenny a bunch, and carried off by the Jews down the dark, sinful streets to be hung up in their houses ' for luck ' on the coming harvest. Such a different meaning they had to our eyes, and such a message of hope came with them .I" . . . Miss Haworth and Miss Trotter felt that if they could get some place as a " blow hole " it would be the saving of the health of the Band. · They went up to the little hotel at El-Biar, to look about, but nothing was to be seen that was suitable. The last day, when they were out for a walk in a ravine em­ bedded with masses of white convolvulus, they saw above them a rambling Arab house. They found the old place was for sale. Lilias writes : " Half thinking aloud as we looked across at it from a group of stone-pines opposite, I said, ' I wonder whether that lower little house,' pointing to a row of barred win­ dows below, ' would be to let ? ' We went and knocked at one door after another in vain. At last one stood open into a deserted court with orange trees, so we went in and explored farther. A perfect rabbit warren of a place, bare and dilapidated, but oh I the possibilities of it, not for ourselves, but for the work. It seemed like a kind of fairy-tale or dream suddenly dropped down to earth, yet with a curious sense that it was no dream but a wonderful bit of God's unfoldings." They at once made inquiries ; the price, they found, was very slightly above what they would have had to pay for a small new-built house, and she wrote : " So it has gone into the lawyers' hands, and we wait and wonder to see if it is really the Heaven-dropped gift that it seems." Dar Naama, El-Biar, 1905 and 1906 III Two months sped by, full of work and many anxieties about her people, who were passing through persecution from their relations. Miss Trotter writes : "July 1oth.-The El-Biar House is Blanche's, or rather it is God's. Up to the day of signing we did not know how it would go, and could only cast it on Him."

FROM I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. (after attending the Llandrindod Convention).

" EN'GLAND, October. " The future in going back next week is widened by several horizons of hope in new openings and new workers that seem to be on their way to us. Beyond these human horizons, God has given, specially during the wonderful days of the Llandrindod Convention, divine horizons of resources that lie in the Cross of Christ, for the battle against ' principalities and powers ' gets more and more intensely real. " Among the promises that God has showered down lately, there stands out this one : ' Behold, I give you authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.' "

Journal: " Algiers, October 2oth.-Back to-night on the battle­ field with more than ever for which to praise God in the summer months. "A beautiful little story comes to begin our winter's campaign. Ali told it at the meeting last Sunday. He was up in the mountains with the donkey and vegetables, and came on an Arab reading a gospel to two others. ' What do you know about that ? ' he asked. ' I know it is the truth, and that Jesus died for me,' was the answer. ' I bought it a few months ago, and I am reading it to the others.' 'Then you are a Messihee (Christian) ? ' ' I know not ; but I know Jesus died for me, and that he that believeth on Him is not condemned. I come every day to read to those who will listen.' " 112 I. Lilias Trotter "November 1oth.-Another opening these days, Blida's third outpost, Dellys. Zehour has gone up there for a fortnight and invited May to come that she might take her round to her friends, a chance not to be lost. Zehour is a queer, strong-minded woman, a spinster by choice. She takes the cudgels up for us and does much of the work of the Kingdom without the slightest intention of ever being a Christian. " 'A new thing has happened,' said Belaid at the morning meeting, with a ring in his bass voice ; ' a man told me yesterday that he was at a mosque, and the Imam said in his sermon that the Gospel is a good book, and sent from God, and that every one should read it. I have said it was blasphemy to read it ; I will not say so any more.' It seems the man met our colporteur a little while ago and asked if it was he who gave away the tracts. ' You do well,' he said;' they are admirable; they are for waking people up to their sins and to the hereafter.' " March I oth, 1906.-They had their first night in Dar Naama. Journal continued : " It was only in the morning that we realized that it was the eighteenth anniversary of our landing here, for that was also Friday night. May God make it a ' New beginning of Days,' breaking every bond wherewith Satan has sought to bind us, these eighteen years. As to the name for the new house, we feel we have got the right one, ' Dar Naama '-' The House of Grace.' " Lilias was cheered by the coming of " Hamid " from the mountains, he and two other men for the day. He was very nice and said, " Now we know about sin, you have done us a great good in coming to us, for we of the mountains know nothing." She asked him what he understood about Christ and he answered, " Sidna Aissa came down from God to bear our sins. He died and rose again, and is now in Heaven, and when we ask God to forgive us our sins because Sidna Aissa bore them, He does, and there is no one like Him, and the Taleb says so too.''

" Dar Naama, Saturday, March 3 ut.-The Conference Dar Naama, El-Biar, 1905 and 1906 days, led by Mr. Charles lnwood, are over ; all has gone beautifully, every room has been hallowed by prayer, and praise, and love. ' Jesus,' was the first word of the first meeting, the first united breaking forth of the house into its new life. ' Jesus, the very thought of Thee,' that was the first hymn, and the other hymn, that always rang with a strange spirit cadence, was the Llanthony Abbey one : " ' Let me come closer to Thee, Lord Jesus, Yes, closer day by day.' " Journal: " June 4th.-A long time and no record. Influenza, and its resultant inertia, made writing stay limited to ' need he's.' I am at El-Biar convalescing in a long, lovely room, with black-beamed ceiling and whitewashed walls, and cretonnes of green and gold so restful. The roses outside have crumpled up with the sudden heat, and a burst of pomegranate bloom and oleander, white and rose, shows that summer is here." Lilias came to Algiers and found that poor Chira, the wild negress of former days, had come back in a state of collapse. She writes : "Dear soul, she had said that she must come to us. She brought seven sous for her first meal : ' Lili loves me, she will not turn me out.' She was lying on a cushion on the floor. After a bit we got her installed in the house douira. There she stays, and we have secured a stalwart Kabyle woman as night nurse. It is very beautiful that she is lying there, peaceful and grateful, with a light on her face at every mention of Christ, in the very skifa that was the scene of such wild fights eighteen months ago. There is a sequel in God's ways, Hallelujah I " Three of their little company had passed away in a fortnight, and she wrote : " There is a strange gladness about it. Gladder the more we love them. ' Comforted concerning him, seeing that he was dead.' I think it needs to have these Moslem sheep to shepherd, to know what it means. " A lesson out of the garden I Blanche set Ahmed to plant some mimosa trimmings as cuttings to thicken the hedge. I found him, after an hour or so, looking mourn- 114 I. Lilias Trotter fully at the trench he had dug. ' It is useless to plant anything, the earth is dead.' ' No, it is not dead, only dry.' ' But I tell you it is dead.' He stooped and picked up a rock-like clod that he had hewn with his pickaxe from the trench. It looked dead enough. The African soil in August is much the same as a well-trodden highway, but it is only waiting. ' It is the very same earth as it is in winter ; all it wants is water, and water you must give it.' And, with an Oriental's laconic patience, he went on with the hewing and planting. " With a new hope in God my own words came back to me, ' It is not dead, it is only dry.' For of all the soil in the world our Moslem soil seems the most barren, and all around, friends and foes, repeat the same words, ' It is useless to plant anything, the earth is dead.' " In the teeth of both friends and foes, in the teeth of the hosts of darkness who take up the words and fling them at us with a stinging taunt, we aver and affirm, ' No I it is not dead-it is only dry ! ' "

"Such a House of Grace I Things without number that we knew nothing of when we purchased it : five wells, cherries, loquats, pears, figs, walnuts, pomegranates, besides oranges which were the only visible fruit trees, each, as they ripened and were discovered, has come as a new surprise from God's hand ; a plum tree ripened just as we came up, and we got well over a hundredweight of fruit from it before our neighbours cleared it for us ! " " Algiers, November 2 1 st.-We came back from the monthly Communion service for our little Band at the English Church, to find, on the cross-barred window-sill on the stairs, a small paper bundle. It was a queer collection of oblong scraps of paper covered with quaint cabbalistic signs, a little incense, and some earth and other nondescript fragments. Hawawouch was called to interpret, and verified our conjecture that it was a charm meant to work us ill or separate us from some one. Hawawouch had found the door blackened with tar half an hour before and burnt charcoal on the doorstep ; all part and parcel of the same. We were afraid she would Dar Naama, El-Biar, 1905 and 1906 be upset about it; however, she was not. She said it would turn all our heads upside down, and has given it as a reason for one or two kitchen breakages. A smaller edition (its sister, as the Arabs would call it) was on the doorstep last week. Oh I that faith may hold on, that all weapons that are formed against us may fall as absolutely flat and harmless as these." The winter's fight was beginning, the echoes of the Pan-Islamic movement and of the troubles in Morocco made currents run strong in the air around, and in some of the native cafes where our colporteurs used to be sure of a hearing, tracts were seized an'd torn up. Lilias's comment is: " It is all to the good; it is in the stormy atmosphere that we shall get souls 'well born.' " " December 2 8th.-The year is going out with a deep sense that God is very near us. A great hunger for Him in our meetings together, a new liberty, and a new cry that ' the power Jesus promised should come down.' We can see the answer on the way for the lads : there have been such times of stillness and power in the Monday lantern services, that we have gone on with them instead of closing down at the end of Ramadan." BLIDA AND BOUSAADA, 1907 CHAPTER XI

BLIDA AND BOUSAADA, 1907

:dNUART 2nd. Lilias went to Blida. The spring had come, and the J meadows were clustered with yellow jonquils, and the lanes starry with golden celandines, broad, strong, and radiant as the African sun knows how to make them, but her heart was very sorrowful because of the wreckage of two girls' lives through the deadly influence of fortune­ tellers. She says : " We are finding out that this fortune-telling, acting on Moslem fatalism, is a terrible weapon in the devil's hands. The people firmly believe that they are bound to follow out what is decreed, and let all will-power and sense of responsibility go. The enemy seemed coming in like a flood in that direction, and at Blida, in three out of four new houses we visited, we were asked if we had come to practise this craft." February 9th. Another village day. " The road was a straight one, with almond trees in bloom ; a footpath wandered alongside of it towards the 1ow --,fs and prickly-pear hedges that stretched in ,:; almost to the foot of the mountains. Between us and them lay the river-bed. Oh joy ! on the other side were tent people, gathering the torrent-stones for road mending. An elderly man asked for books, and offered to carry us across. He looked a bit shaky, so we declined and sent him to get one of the tent people's donkeys. It is only now and again that these Bedouins emerge from their far-away haunts and come within reach. Here they were get-at-able for a tiny half-hour of their lives. They were like children, going into peals of laughter all the time, and peering at us with their dark, unawake faces. The only way, with such like, is to work from the seen to the unseen, so I began with the stones and told them how one was not very heavy, but that as one, two, three, 9 , 120 I. Lilias Trotter twenty, fifty went into the basket, the weight increased, and so it was with the burden of sin, the lying, thieving, quarrelling. They were a bit puzzled at first at having to get hold of an abstract idea, and stones and sins got mixed up ; were stones sins, or sins stones ? But soon their Oriental minds got hold of the simile, and when Blanche went on to tell them how alone they could not carry the basket full of stones, but had to call a man to help them, so God had sent Jesus to carry their sins away, some faint glimmer crossed their faces. Then ' Fast, fast, fast, it is fasting that will take you to heaven,' came in a chorus of voices. Had anything penetrated? Just a ray, I think, by the fact of contradiction rising. We felt it would need a week, living in a tent by them, to bring the light fully within their reach. Heavy-hearted for them, we turned back along the river-bank. A figure stood there outside the first group of houses-a dash of crimson drapery against the grey stones, and the silver links of the stream and the dark blue hills beyond-a middle-aged woman with a keen, intelligent face. A few minutes' talk and we were led into her courtyard with its ready-made congregation of women and children. The report of our help from the donkey had gone before us. 'Why did you not call us? We would have carried you over,' they said. They listened in a dim way, but intelligence itself, compared with the tent people. There was no sense of heart-touch until just as we were getting up. From the mat under the wall's shadow, an elderly woman tottered into the courtyard, shrunken and sallow with fever. ' She is ill ; sing to her,' they said. I was passing her with just a few words, for time was going, but she stretched out her hand and said, 'Tell me about Jesus; He is ours and He is yours' ; and as I told her a little she touched her fore­ head with her hands and then kissed them, in sign of reverence, and there was a wistful look in the sunken brown eyes. ' There was another wistful face in the second house. It belonged to a rather sweet-looking woman. ' I have heard nothing until to-day. I have heard a little to-day,' she said. We tried to teach her Ourida's chorus, for its minor Blida and Bousaada, I 907 121 cadence makes it one of the easiest for them to get hold of : ' Thou didst bear our sins, Thou dost shelter us from our faults, Thou dost purify our hearts, 0 Jesus, Son of God.' She listened as we sang it, again and again. When we tried to get her to repeat it, she hesitated. ' I am afraid,' she replied. · " ' Yes, you are afraid because you do not know Jesus,' and we went on telling again the ever-new story of His love. Then as we rose up to go, I stooped over her in the corner where she sat, and said, ' You will not be afraid ? ' She looked up with a dawn of a smile and said, 'No ; I will speak to Him and not be afraid.' " " Elida, April 7th.-I came down here to be with Annie and May. One dear old woman stands out before me as I write-the old women are mostly so stiff-hearted and dense; this one's mind was all alert. She was sitting in a barn-like room in a village above Blida, and she had heard nothing before. She was sorting barley in a great wooden platter ; we sat by her on the earthen floor. Her dark eyes had a light and depth about them, as if thoughts lay behind. ' It is all going,' she said ; ' the world plays with us and goes away.' We think it may be soon going with her, for paralysis seemed threatening her. ' My left arm is full of ants and thorns,' she expressed it. The younger woman alongside of her was of the self-righteous type. After a bit we showed them the picture of the Pharisee and the Publican, and told them the story of their two prayers. ' Which of the two was accepted before God ? ' I asked. Almost invariably the Pharisee is pointed out. He was quite ideal in his fitness for heaven to the Moslem mind, but this old Fatima's finger passed the lines by and showed the Publican. The story of Jesus the Sinbearer seemed to come to her like dew. ' Yes, I will speak to Him about my sins,' she said; ' I will speak to Him to-day.' Blessed Lamb of God, we have His word for such souls as hers. ' Him that is on the way I will in no wise cast out.' " At this time they were hoping to realize another longing they had had of starting a regular station at Blida, 122 I. Lilias Trotter which would mean much for their dear mountain people. An unexpe~ted gift in the spring made them feel the way was preparing. Miss Trotter thus describes the venture : " God is very wonderful. We started in the early morning. Yes, we were going up the very hill and lane where we had hoped the station might be. Oh joy I the brace of little native lads who were guiding us wheeled round into the transverse path and pointed to the first gate. Behind the gate was a great field bordered with olives and filled with vines, half-way up it a well, at the top, a cottage with a vine scrambling over its latticed verandah, a few rows of fruit trees, fig and pomegranate. Was this really what God had been keeping as a surprise for us ? If so, it is, in its measure, the fairy-tale of Dar Naama over again with its possibilities of extension, and the price hardly to be believed. Visions come of one castle in the air after another." "September ,;,nd.-August has come to an end, and the cooling days bring the joyful hope of getting off for some tenting in the villages." Lilias and Annie Whistler started September 7th. When they arrived at their first stopping-place they were met by a tall man with a grave, gentle face who led them to their camping-ground. They found that their hosts were Marabouts, and that the whole country round was bristling with their villages. They suspected it was a deliberate plan that they should be landed there, but they were not cast down, feeling that God had a counter-plan that would quietly work out. Lilias writes : " If He lets us be set down in the midst of these most antagonistic souls and gives us grace and wisdom in some way to witness to Him without raising a storm, the fact of being their guests will give us an entrance in all the country round. ' Sin, righteousness, and judgment,' that is what we feel is our message to them." And so it proved : before they left, the Arab college authorities had accepted the gift of a Bible. "September 21st.-We are now in another world. Blida and Bousaada, 1907 123 We had meant to take the afternoon diligence on our arrival, but, by a series of God's lesser guidings, we settled to stay the night, and went outside the town where the native suburb lay. We stood for a moment to revel in the soft, vivid colouring that tableland borrows from the south, then we caught sight of a procession filing towards the village, a group of white-robed men in front, and then, a bit behind, a maze of colour which meant the women following. We struck off at an angle, and joined them between the two groups. We fell back towards the women's group, veiled, most of the~, in golden gauze, spangled and shining. 'Go with them, fear not,' said a man. A moment more we had entered through a mud brick courtyard into the room behind. The veils were thrown back, and we were surrounded by such a shimmering tangle of gorgeous colour as I think I have never seen, framing dear walnut-brown faces and dark, inquiring eyes. Twenty-five to thirty women and girls gathered for a feast and nothing to do till sundown, when the feast would begin. We had a silent and intent listening as we talked about the adorning God wanted for His Feast in heaven ; one darling girl put her arm across my knees and drank in every word with such a soul in her eyes ! "Yesterday was a dream of delight as the lumbering diligence turned due south at sunrise towards the land that had been closed so long. As we passed through that desert gate, came the words, clear as a bell, ' Under the shadow of His wings.' " At midday there was a halt ; soon after midnight we were back in another coach, a rattle-trap this time, lined with sheet-iron, against possible attacks from brigands. In the morning we reached the sand-dune stretches ; then the faint blue-green line, at the base of the mountains, became firmer and grew into masses of distant palms, with a piled-up earth-coloured town crowning them. Such a caravan we passed, a real creche of Bedouin babies on camel-back ; the little brown faces looked so sweet as they bobbed up and down in their nests of cushions and cover­ ings. A few more miles of heavy sand and we were here. ' The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth 124 I. Lilias Trotter the Father do.' The true understanding is the seeing of God, and that is what we need here, great heart-sensitive­ ness and patience, in entering the long-closed door and letting Him take the initiative at every step.,, The first days they found no openings. Up and down the streets they went, with no sense of entrance to the houses ; the very children seemed afraid to make friends. Then they tried the river-bed to see if they could get a hearing among the women who wash their clothes there ; they sat down and talked amidst a clamour of " Shehedi, Shehedi" (witness to Mohammed), from the hard-featured women round. The next day, at the market, they noticed that the looks of suspicion that had met them everywhere at first among the men were melting into kindness ; it had been found out that the strangers knew Arabic, and that their haunting the streets meant friendliness. Journal: " A little past the cemetery were two or three Bedouin tents. By the nearest, an old woman's head was visible, a mournful old face, with bright, doglike eyes ; she seemed fairly approachable, and while I was talking to her Annie caught sight of a group watching us from the door of a little mud-house among the prickly pears beyond A lad, who had been trying to help me make the dense old Bedouin understand, flew q_ff, evidently to say that we were talking Arabic. The women looked towards us and waved their hands, calling ' Come I ' Oh, the music of it I " Another three minutes we were sitting on the ground in the middle of their palm garden with a group round us, broken by one after another darting away to bring us figs or pomegranates. We talked a bit, and then felt they were getting restless, which generally means the men are coming. ' We will come again,' we said ; ' we want to talk to you about Heaven and the way to be ready for it.' A middle­ aged woman, Fatima, took my hand and kissed it, and there was a wistful look in her eyes. 'Come to-morrow, come early,' she said." " September 2 5th.-And early though we came, they had already sent a dear slim girl to find us and bring us, and Fatima at last got a glimmering of our message and Blida and Bousaada, I 907 125 took us next door. Here the lord of the house came in, an old man with a thin, earnest face, who plunged instantly into the mazes of Moslem tradition and tried, with touching earnestness, to convict us of our danger. ' You will see it all when the last day comes,' he said. ' In the Account you will see Mohammed ~tand and with him the multi­ tudes who have followed him, but those who have dis­ obeyed him and done evil will be in hell of fire. The Jews and the Christians will say to him, " All these people who have trusted in thee, thou canst do nothing for them "; and then Mohammed will say, " Ye shall see," and he will take them up out of Hell thus, and thus, in multitudes and multitudes,' and he made as if he were flinging the crowds over his shoulder. ' So will he save them all. And you,' and the benevolent hazel eyes looked earnestly at us, 'in that day God will say to you, " I sent you warning, I told you by the mouth of that old man of Bousaada what was the way of life and you would not listen " ; it will be woe for you in that day.' " He would not listen to our side, dear old man, only sent for his best pomegranates and, as we had no basket, filled with them one of our sun-umbrellas--our 'clouds,' is their pretty name for them-to the detriment of its appearance and the risk of our heads. "We have found a tribe whose encampments stretch over a wide reach of country westward. This tribe has an individuality about it-' Oulad Aissa ' (' Children of Jesus') is their name, and they believe themselves to be literally descended from Him. There is probably some lost strain of Christian blood in their veins. Crusaders or captives of bygone days. 'Tell us what Jesus did, tell us what Jesus did,' echoed from one after another, as we went among their tents, and the men spent their scanty pence in buying Gospels that they could not read. They put the books to their foreheads and kissed them, and hid them in their robes, saying, ' We cannot read them, but they will bring us a blessing.' " The Ramadan fast was five days off, the signal for being back at our post in Algiers. Souls who are struggling to break free need us alongside.'' TRANSLATING-SWEDEN, 1908, 1909, and 1910 CHAPTER XII

TRANSLATING-SWEDEN, 1908, 1909, AND 1910

RELIZANE OPENS

1908 OURNAL: " Algiers, January 2oth.-It is a wonderful thing J that this should be the first week of prayer ever given to the Moslem world, the first sign of the Church's recognition of its needs. The fact must make a stir in the unseen world that will be felt when the ripples of the spiritual wave reach the shore of the visible." Lilias and Miss Freeman went to Cherchell for ten days, to work with the missionaries there, comparing various translations of St. Luke that all might be in readi­ ness for the final revision committee. She writes : " The difficulties and delays that have beset the issue can only mean that the powers of darkness dread the flooding in of light that will come when the people will no longer have to puzzle out classical Arabic that is so far above their comprehension." Journal continued : " Algiers.-We are well under way with the revision. Our part is only to say what is understood by the unlearned and to write out the fresh text as it is decided on, which means, at times, driving along at a rate that makes us uncharitably glad when the translators get into a puzzle. " God has sent us a first-rate Arab helper. He has an intensely keen, intelligent mind, wide-awake all round, and yet is a native of the natives. " When we want a word for humility, or hope, or holiness, we can only borrow from the classical, dimly to be guessed at by ordinary readers. We write for a people yet unborn spiritually ; the words will be understood when u9 I. Lilias Trotter the realities for which they stand come to need expression. We have to make a spiritual language against the time it will be wanted." "March 2oth.-St. Luke is slowly growing into final setting. There are words and phrases that will always be linked with prayer victories ; when no clue came to an involved passage or untranslatable expression, suddenly the solution would come, dropped down from heaven upon one or another of us, sometimes on the Arab himself, and that all the more evidently of God, for, as often as not, he did not realize where the point of difficulty lay." Miss Trotter and Miss Haworth went to England, and from there to Sweden, in response to the invitation of the Swedish Y.W.C.A. " September I 2th.-Now comes Sweden. We start on Monday night. Whatever is to be done there God must do, for I never felt more utterly at sea in my life." " September I 5th.-OfF, after such a skirmish to get through as surpasses anything I ever knew, so that it came as a sense of infinite relief when we started and slipped across to Holland over a sea like a pond for smoothness, and now we are racing on in the great continental express." " Sweden, September I 7th.-The morning brought a world of steel-coloured lakes and boulder-strewn fields and blue-green pine forests, repeating each other in endless succession, till we were landed in Stockholm and carried off to the Y.W.C.A. Our traps were taken to another little train for the last hour's journey that would bring us to the Swedish Keswick, in full swing in a neighbouring seaside town. And here, suddenly, we were in a new family, dear, friendly people, who seized us and made us welcome. It was a lovely feeling of the meeting of Christ's body, the instant sense of at-homeness awaiting all the strangers." Of this visit to Sweden and Denmark Miss Trotter kept the happiest recollections, and the following note tells of the impressions she and Miss Haworth left behind them. The Baronesss Schaffatzky, Denmark, wrote: "Some years back Miss Trotter came with one of her Translating-Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910 131 fellow-workers to visit here, which we always remember with gladness and thanksgiving. Her love-stamped per­ sonality, warm testimony, worked powerfully in us all, whether she spoke of God's word or put forth the needs and spiritual darkness of the Moslem Field with its great need of workers. Two members of the Y.W. offered themselves, Alma Krebs and Ellen Degenkolf, who, in autumn 1 909, were dedicated and sent forth through the K.M.A." In a wonderful way came another unfolding. Lilias writes : "When we were with Baroness Kureks, she was full of thoughts as to whether we could, on our way back, get to see a dear friend of hers, Sister Eva, in Eastern Germany. But when we went to the Y.W.C.A. at Berlin for the meet­ ing, behold the news that Sister Eva had passed through the day before and would be back again in a few days, and a letter came from her begging us to go to Miechowitz. We arrived at the Y.W.C.A. five minutes before she came, all unknowing, and for the only half-hour she had free. Our hearts were knit instantly, and we settled to go back with her to Miechowitz." Journal: "Algiers, December 24th.-God's gift has come. To­ day brought us the first package of finished copies of St. Luke's Gospel. ' The Dayspring from on High has visited us ' in this. " What God can do with a single copy has been proved again this year. In the spring a Sheikh suddenly began, in Kabylia, to preach Christ, as the Saviour of the world, going from village to village with a few disciples. His light may be deficient, yet his influence is strong Christ­ wards, and he preaches Him as the Lamb of God, the sin Bearer. He is beginning to have a following among the young men in those districts. It was through a Gospel given to his secretary, when in Algiers, by M. C., that God met him. " So this first Gospel, which will be understood from cover to cover by the Arabs, goes off on a flood-tide of hope in the same Lord over all, rich to all that call upon Him." I. Lilias Trotter

1909 January 5th.-Lilias and Miss Freeman set out for Relizane. " It is not often one consciously turns a corner in life like this. We looked up at Miliana as we passed it, lying along the mountain-side with a silver fillet of snow crowning the crest above. Will that be the next to catch the sunrise? Then hours of travel among low, tawny hills splashed with dark tent-like bushes, like a panther's skin, then the widen­ ing into the plain, the hills falling back from it into a pink­ fretted distance full of touches of bluish prickly-pear plantations which mean villages all unreached, no point of light nearer than Morocco, once Blida is left behind." They reached Relizane on the morning of the Epiphany which, Miss Trotter felt, was a promise of" The Day Star " heralding the sunrise. They found the house that they believed was God's choice, and the next day it was secured; and she adds : " When things move swiftly out here we know, with special certainty, that it is of God." Journal: " We have been about the new parish with a sense again that it is of Him. It is larger than we expected, street upon street of little houses, with dear painted butter­ flies of children flitting about, the girls in peaked caps and silver-embroidered belts, the fashion of this province. " Hills and cloud-land and even dear Arab maidens have not been much attended to these days, for they have been spent in ransacking the meagre shops for the necessi­ ties of life, and fitting them together with ingenious private arrangements of Helen's fashioning, from packing cases and petroleum boxes. We feel that in these out-stations, more than we know depends on living among the people in absolute simplicity." It was a great joy to Lilias that this year Sister Eva came to stay at Dar Naama to recruit after illness. Miss Alma Krebs joined the band at this time. Lilias writes: " Another growing point is that the first of the new missionaries under Bishop Hartzell of the American Translating-Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910 133 Episcopal Methodist Church has landed. We trace God•s hand in it, and believe it will mean an extension and a solidifying of effort for the land. . . . " God has sent us this spring two bits of comforting over the long hold of the spiritual winter, a strange kind of comforting, yet very real to our hearts. One was through a missionary, who told us that, used as he was to wicked heathen cities in India, none had ever given him the same sense of spiritual oppression as came over him in passing through the Algiers streets. He echoed almost word for word what Mr. Summers said on the same subject, a year ago. Since then a third corroboration has come, from one used to life in Moslem strongholds. He was here for a few hours in the winter and wrote the other day: ' I cannot get rid of the sense of indescribable need, I had almost said hopeless need, that the sight of Algiers has left on me.' " All these seem to tell that it is in some special sense a stronghold of the powers of darkness, and that there may be factors unrecognized by us that make the chill of winter stiff in loosing its grasp, apart from our own short­ comings in faith and service. " One more door is opening--oh, such a glad one I We have been holding before God, for months past, the possi­ bility of a station in the south district, and now workers seem to be forthcoming. What this means, after all these years of heart-longing, over that special bit of the South land, can hardly be told. It was fifteen years this spring since our visit there, which rose out of a stray talk with a hotel porter at Constantine, when Helen and I were on our first journey. It took our hearts then with its weird loneliness among the huge sand-dunes. The men are Arabs of a wholly different type from the do lee far niente Arabs of Algiers, and the maidens remain as a vision of the loveliest girl life I have ever seen anywhere. Such perfect grace and sweetness, brown-skinned, blue-robed, with head-gear of veils dyed after a fashion of their own, in every gr~dation of colour in a single specimen, from white through lemon, yellow, flame-colour, and deep crimson. 134 I. Lilias Trotter I can see them now sitting in a circle round us, their distaffs flying, with listening demure faces, showing no sign whether they understood or not. They must have become mothers long ago, those little maidens, and they have never heard again I" At this time Miss Trotter rejoiced at the prospect of Miss Currie and Miss Roche joining them, and at the opening of fresh possibilities. She writes : " This morning Blanche and I saw, posted on the wall opposite, a bill of sale for a native house in the thick of the Arab quarter, at a curiously small sum. It would make such a slum post both in position and character, a step down towards living among the people as never seemed possible before. " After a brief rest at Sidi Ferruch the workers returned to El Biar, July 22nd, for a children's camp of a week in the Arab court below the house, headed by Fatima as housemother. To-day, the old Sheikh was concerned at the amount it must take to feed so many, even on stric;tly native lines, and begged to be allowed to help to the extent of a franc, two days' earnings by cutting grass on the road, and very precious. He was bona fide in earnest about it. " The Arab court is full of sunny gladness, and the shrill treble of" youyouyouyou," which marks all Arab re­ joicing, resounds when the children are let out to play, or called in to eat. They come from the orchard in a pro­ cession, with heads wreathed, like so many small Bacchuses. Fatima's headdress, of violet and white wild flowers, is generally a mass of winding tendrils round her fragile face. " Yesterday was the last day and the best. The old Sheikh, on leaving, said to his wife : ' They are good people, and Jesus was good. I have heard bad things of all prophets, but never in my life have I heard a bad thing about Jesus. You may follow them.' " The children went round to say good-bye : ' 0 trees, remain in peace,' ' 0 grass, remain in peace,' ' remain in peace, 0 flowers.' Dear little souls, one's heart is sad that the city, and its sins, lies before them again. We dare go no farther or faster yet, but it is straight from one joy to another, these days of opening doors. The slum Translating-Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910 13 5 post is really Blanche's to hold for God as a new point of advance for His Kingdom."

The following paper, written by her, tells of some of the matters which were occupying her thoughts at this time about the needs of Moslem women, whom she so loved and longed over : From" Blessed be Egypt," July 1909. " It was last July that Miss Van Sommer first wrote to me on the subject of literature for Moslem women with the view of preparing a paper for the Lucknow Conference. " The Turkish Constitution, with all it meant for the emancipation of women, suddenly brought the question of providing them with literature from the horizon to the middle distance of our missionary outlook." Miss Trotter drew up a list of questions and sent them forth, through the pages of Blessed be Egypt, to workers amongst Moslem women. The article is too long to insert in its completeness. All the questions and sugges­ tions show thoughtful insight into the matter. I will only quote different points :

" 1. Evangelistic Literature-i.e. the direct appeal to individual conscience, the clearest possible setting forth of the way of life and urging of heart and will to its acceptance. " Pictures.-In out-of-the-way places they are useless, but with growing civilization they become welcome and serve in village-visiting, where the women can hear so seldom, and need something to rivet memory. A couple of dozen scenes from the life of our Lord, each bearing a Bible verse or a chorus, have been found useful. The power of association links pictures and words. " 2. Hymns.-Do they come into Literature? I think so, for even more than pictures they remain as crystallizing points in heart and mind. Let Eastern women sing alone one of our tunes that they only half know, it falls into a minor, with cadences we can hardly catch, and becomes their own. If we could in some way pass the wording through the native mind we would do well. IO I. Lilias Trotter "3. Metrical Fersions.-Here lies a field for evangel­ izing 'the ignorant and them that are out of the way.' Bible passages can be ' carried ' by them, as the Arab women express it, far more easily thus than in prose, which is 'heavy,' they say, and 'drops' from them. It would be good if the gospel story were put into a form that could be chanted or sung, somewhat in the line of the recitative of their own blind singers. " Tracts and booklets, each dealing with some one of the aspects of sin or salvation, taking a standpoint which is their outlook (European tracts are useless) and leading them on, using illustrations such as they can easily grasp. Very simple controversial tracts for the pulling down of the false hopes of their creed, ending likewise with a strong, personal appeal. " New Literature for Christian women. Do fellow­ missionaries sigh over the words, and think it is a far day to the need for that ? It may not be. We have a God who lives in eternity, and knows no time-limits. We can be getting ready for the showers, like the autumn crocus of these southern lands, that rears its head in faith, while, as yet, there is hardly a cloud in the sky. " God is making history before our eyes in the emanci­ pation of Moslem lands, let us pray that we may have spiritual discernment of His ways and fellowship with His purposes. "Pray for the writers who will give themselves to understand and meet the hearts and minds of the women of Islam, and write for them in the power of the Holy Ghost. " Pray for intelligent Christian women to be raised up by God from among themselves, who. will interpret to us the half-explored mentality and the half-realized life conditions that we seek to reach. "And do not let us feel 'it is all premature.' Faith is generally premature ; it deals with ' things not seen as yet.' For us, vision on this point has almost begun. Do not let us lose our last chance of believing by waiting till the dawn has broken into day. "I. LU,lAS TROTIER," Translating-Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910 137 The New Year opened with what seemed an onward step : a French helper came definitely into the work. He had been acting factotum at El Biar and had great influence over the Arab lads. Miss Trotter felt that between the painting and carpentering a real hold was being gained over them. In March she writes : "The work over St. John's Gospel goes slowly. It is even more full of interest than the revision of St. Luke, and· from the very nature of the truth taught in it, needs still more careful weighing. · " It is not the question of just giving a Gospel in words that the people can understand, but to give them the germ of a spiritual language in which the things that the Holy Ghost teaches can be expressed. The dearth of this seems in the inverse ratio to the richness of the tongue for all secular purposes. "The words for spiritual realities have to be grafted on to the colloquial, waiting for the sap of the new life to weld them in and flow through them." " March 13th.-A word in Job has come in spirit and life, these days: ' Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field.' The very things that are obstacles­ stumbling-blocks in the way may, when the chastening of God (of which the context tells) has had its way, be taken as helps instead of hindrances. We may take our very impediments into partnership in the work of our sanctification. Praise be to His Name ! " A terrible epidemic of typhus broke out in Algiers, and with the strain involved for the workers, everything seemed to have fallen into irregularity, just as an orderly course of work was getting established. Miss Trotter wrote, however : " One comfort is that regularity is not the mark of a battlefield. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise." Journal: "March 21st.-A bit of light along the skyline, with which God so often helps us when the foreground is rough. " The sudden proposal from Helen that the time had come when she would carry out another hop~ that has I. Lilias Trotter lain hidden in my heart of late, with only a cry now and then to God that it may be brought to pass. It is that of a van for reaching the places off the beat. Oh, how I have longed for one as the only possible solution for those villages on the tableland and plains beyond the reach of any European centre ! " Things were getting worse and worse : one after another sickened ; it was the busiest time of the year with the Conference beginning. Lilias writes : " We felt like putting it off, but Bishop Hartzell begged that we should not do so, and offered to come and speak himself, so it seemed right to go forward blindly. " It was very hard to concentrate on the meetings, with the flitting of telegrams and telephone-messages, doctors' visits and the anxious faces of nurses. Even without these complications it would have been a difficult Con­ ference. Still, it has brought the welding and the rallying that we hoped for, and that may mean more ahead than appears as yet. " " April I Ith.-Back at Rue du Croissant ; of all our staff of February only Mlle Gayral and I remain on the field here. " Typhus is still rife all round, and we feel the need of a daily garrisoning of prayer, that no harm may come through the gathering of the children from houses that may or may not be infected." Quickly another terrible blow fell. The French worker, on whom so much depended, sickened and died of typhus. When Miss Trotter got to him he was hardly conscious, except when the sound of the Blessed Name of Jesus brought back a rally in his ebbing powers. "Jesus, vive Jesus ! " were his last words. Then a little girl who was staying with them was taken ill. This epidemic was getting worse all round them, and A. W. was told by the doctor she needed six months' rest to avoid permanent disabling. Lilias wrote : " When will the north wind have done its work ? When will the south wind rise from its land of eternal T.i;anslating-Sweden, 1908, 1909, and 1910 139 summer ? Is it waiting for a wider vacuum to draw it into action ? " "June 3rd.-With this fresh crippling of our working staff all we can do, it seems, these weeks is to close once more the classes, and do what we can from El Biar, where the younger ones can work at their Arabic in safety." Miss Trotter and Miss Freeman crossed to Macugnaga, North Italy-a much-needed change. On their return to Algiers later, they found a member of their dear flock who had run so well, under a strange cloud which they felt was caused by one of the dread brain poisons. They were coming to the conclusion that five out of six cases of apparent backsliding were due to the terrible drugging. Nothing but prayer can protect them from it, when once the fears of their friends have been roused by an open confession. In September Miss Trotter and Miss Haworth started inland for the head of the pass frequented by the desert people on their way north. Thinking it might make a good summer station, they wanted to look round and see how the land lay. When they reached the region of dark terra-cotta tents, they felt for the first time they could look at them without the old heartache, as the van would bring them within reach when God's time was fully come. Of their return journey Miss Trotter says : " We were drinking coffee, and we noticed, through the window, the grave, earnest face of the Arab who served us. We asked him if he could read, but there was no response ; many onlookers were around. Still the man hung about, and still we prayed for a chance ; we felt we could not go on and leave nothing. The men were climbing up to the diligence roof, and the start was im­ minent. Then came loudly, 'Have you the coffee cups?' sotto voce, ' Have you still those books ? ' and a hand was swiftly thrust through the window and as swiftly filled and emptied into the depths of his burnous, while the coffee cups carried off were all the outer world knew of the transaction, for we were alone inside." December I 8th.-Typhus had been raging in the oasis, and among those who had fallen was the young chieftain I. Lilias Trotter in whose heart they hoped lay the Pearl of Great Price. " When we remember the gentle earnestness with which he listened and assented time after time, we cannot but hope that he too • All the love of Christ shall learn At His feet in Paradise.' It may have been he would have turned back in the path on earth when he found it led to Calvary. " And so even the joys of this strange year are touched with sorrow ; they look like the dusky clouds of dawn that may kindle up any moment and next year may bring the south wind and the spring-time. For the God of Hope is still with us." OPENING SLUM POST, SHUSHAN PALACE, AND EGYPT, 19II, 1912, and 1913 CHAPTER XIII OPENING SLUM POST, SHUSHAN PALACE, AND EGYPT, 1911, 1912, AND 1913 1911 "JANUARY 6th. -In train to Relizane via Blida. The sense of Epiphany came before dawn in the tremulous clanging of a church bell on the plain below, so gentle at first that it might almost have been the tinkling bells of the wise men's camels, and growing into a crescendo of joy-as will be that' Manifestation' to come at a better daybreak.... " It is good to see here, in Relizane, how the feet of the Good Shepherd are going after His sheep, one by one. " The little new house is perfect, the same sense of having been built for us as we have had over our other dwellings. The nightly barking of innumerable dogs, and the mueddhin's cry from the mosque, a stone's throw off, make one realize that we are at the very door of the natives, and they are in and out all the time, as often as not with little offerings." · "Algiers,March 15th.-To-daysawanotheropening, that of the slum post, Beit Naama. So sweet and pure it looked as we all met to give it into the hands of the Prince of Life and Love, to be a fresh dwelling-place for Him in the heart of the native town. An edging of bright head-gear and inquisitive faces appeared round the neighbouring parapets when we went on the roof. It is a big gift from Heaven. " With it has come another one, in great outward contrast, ' Shushan the Palace,' but its real name is Dar el Fedjr, meaning the House of Dawn. It is ours from June. There is a curious sense of light-heartedness and irre­ sponsibility over the act and all that it involves. I think it must be that' the Government shall be upon His shoulder." "Rapa/lo, Genoa, March 27th.-We arrived here to­ day, and after an hour or two were hard at work with Miss Van Sommer over papers for the Continuation Committee, 143 144 I. Lilias Trotter specially as they bear upon women. . . . The sense of being in a day of God's beginnings has been wonderful, with visions ahead of things that look like dreams, drop­ ping, as we go on, to solid earth, if only a new great ' Volun­ teer army of Christ's Evangelists' can be summoned." The crowning joy of the spring was getting into their premises at a new southern station-Dar en Nour, " The House of Light." It was anciently a fondouk, or a native inn. Miss Trotter wrote : " How good to know that this first foothold for Christ has been won in a desert town, after the long years of loving and longing over that South land I "

After the summer-time of rest she set off for an itineration in the mountains. Journal: " This morning it came to me how the earth had been turning her darkness towards the sun for hours before the dawning, and it brought fresh hope for the villages to which we are going that the ' drawing ' of the Son of Man ' lifted up ' may be felt and yielded to, even if it is in the darkness and through the darkness that they turn to Him.... " A strange dream-like feeling in getting here again after nearly thirty years. " Our mule-driver insisted on a huge circuit to his own · home. Thence we saw a whole string of other unknown villages below. We settled to sleep at his house to see what could be done. " The next day was a fight through those new villages, for they belonged to a Marabout clan. The women were scornful, for the most part, and the men civilly distant. It was worth the fight, though, to get the bits of intelligent listening here and there, and better still the chances for leaving books and the welcome of our promise of a big Bible for their Zaouia college library. "At our night's lodging at the mule-driver's, we helped in maize-shelling till dark, and after supper we had a quiet gathering with the whole family, men and women, which made a night spent with them so well worth while. We should have slept peacefully on our straw mat but for a Slum Post, Shushan Palace, and Egypt 145 scraggy yellow kitten who insisted on walking over us at intervals. The sky had hardly begun to pale with dawning before our hostess was at her loom and our host at his maize-shelling, and then came breakfast of a kind of warm poultice of sticky meal, with pools of oil on the top, and we were off again for two more villages. " A crowd of white-robed student lads and a few older men stood in a field on our homeward way. One of the latter, 'The Lord of Ripeness,' asked us earnestly to come back with the big book of which he had heard, and the lads, headed by a leader, the young 'Lord of Purity,' plunged upon the mule and the book-bag and took all we had left. So even that hardest ground of our four days' tramp showed a thaw as the sun's rays drew near." "Algiers again.-It seemed a stupid thing to miss the tram that night and have half an hour waiting. In the next tram a lank, tired native figure sat opposite. Out of its sunken outline there dawned the likeness to a boy face of long ago, and a word with the man confirmed it: he belonged to our very first Bible class, in the days when the three of us could hardly spin out enough bungling Arabic for a quarter of an hour's talk. " He had led a wild life since then, and now con­ sumption had laid hold on him. From our first visit we could see that the seed sown in such weakness long ago was springing up, and soon, like a child, he came to Christ. ' I rest my soul on Him as I rest my body on this bed,' he said, and the light on his face showed that it was true. " He failed fast, but, faithful in his weakness, he read the Gospels to his brother-in-law and the men friends who came in to see him. " Two nights ago, a man living on the floor below sent for him. He had been ailing for months and Si Moham­ med had often read to him. He was carried down the narrow stone stair, and the other sick man asked : 'What hast thou brought me ? ' ' Just this Book. I have found here the Lord Jesus had borne my sins-I had many sins. I threw myself on Him. Thou hast many sins; throw thyself on Him too.' They remained in prayer, and the sick man signified that the step had been taken. ' We are I. Lilias Trotter brothers now,' said Si Mohammed. ' If thou dost enter first, keep me a place near thee.' A few hours after the man suddenly passed away."

1912 January 5th.-The New Year began with the great relief of the recovery from typhus of one of their number, and Lilias wrote : " Relief always seems to me a bit of heaven let down. It is the only thing, I think, that we can fully realize down here, among the ' all things new' of the first days of the next life." Si Mohammed passed away. He was alone with his sister and her husband. " I am very, very happy,'' he repeated. "I am not vexed at dying ; Jesus is at my head." In February Mr. Smeeton joined them. The house at Relizane passed at last into Miss Freeman's hands, and it was a great joy to Lilias that the guest-rooms at Dar el Fedjr were filled with natives. A former old water-carrier returning to his home down south, asked for two dozen Gospels to take with him, and he begged for a hundred more to be sent down to him. Lilias writes : "The old man's son came for them to-night, with another water-carrier from the same place. I was showing them a picture of the Annunciation and telling them how our Lord came down from heaven to show us the way there, and we could go in with Him without fear, just as without fear I could go with them to their village. The metaphor was lost in the prospect. ' Oh, will you come ? ' said Ali. ' It is a beautiful country, the water melons are as large as this (making a circle with his arms), and the dates-you should see our dates I Will you come ? ' It does not need these attractions to make us want to follow the path of the books. It may be the way 'prepared for us to walk in.' " " July 4th.-The second half of the year opens with another soul safe in port. F. H. F. writes from Relizane : 'Dear Fatima is gone. There was a wonderful sense of peace in her room ; her husband said, "Fatima loved Sidna Aissa. I have seen her cry for love of Him, and she Slum Post, Shushan Palace, and Egypt 147 talked of Him to everybody. Oh, she talked to a great many people ! " ' " Lilias had been much troubled over one of the men, but felt she could not speak to him without breaking confidence. She writes : "Now God has dealt with the matter. He told us to-night of a dream that had come to him. ' I dreamt that a great snake was coiling round my feet and legs and you were there, and in horror I called to you. You said to the snake, " In the name of Jesus leave go." It uncoiled and fell like a rope, and I awoke almost de~d with joy.' Those Arabs need no help in interpreting their parables ; the shining of his face told that he was free." " October.-The next step is the revision of the Acts. It is beautiful that we should have it just as the need comes for showing the meaning of discipleship to those who have lately entered the Kingdom. It is difficult at home to realize how, in these beginning days, there is no one to point to as an example of the path the native Christian should tread. They must look back to the early Church, and that is well."

FROM I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " November. " The colloquial St. John that has been out a year has almost run through its first edition already-and that means a real hunger awakening, I believe, and so much for the Spirit to work with."

Journal: " January.-New Year's day found us at Dar Naama. Twenty-five of us have spent this week together. Three times in the year seems to be the thought for gathering together-at the New Year, and for the Spring Conference, and Autumn Rally. Between whiles the monthly prayer­ lists and quarterly magazine do much to hold the linkings of thought and prayer taut. " The new year brought with it fresh conflict and disappointment, mingled with thanksgiving for new members added to the little native church by baptism.'' I. Lilias Trotter

Journal continued: " February 2 3rd.-A sudden joy has sprung up to-day, sudden as an equatorial sunrise. Amar listened at this morning's service with a great response in his face. When the meeting was over he said : ' I want to know what the death of Christ means. Why had He to die ? ' We sat down with our Bibles, and one passage after another shone up, even to our own souls, in living light, that tells the Holy Ghost is present. ' Oh, I did well to come this morning,' he said, and again and again, ' I see, I see, I see I How was it I did not see it before ? ' In the evening he was back again. ' My heart is like a feast,' he said. ' I laugh for joy ; tell me all about the new life. I know I must not smoke or drink. Tell me the other things. It may be a battle, but God is strong ; I have seen it to-day. He has swept all the darkness out of my heart, out, out ; it is a little thing to take the wish for tobacco out of my body.' " But each step onwards meant renewed conflict. She writes : " These weeks have seen ups and downs. The first Communion service for several years was held to-day in our mosque, with all it means of joy over the tiny rows of native brethren sitting in our midst. The first-fruits of three races-Kabyle, Arab, Negro-were side by side. On Easter day was issued from Dar Naama a tiny prayer­ book in Arabic, containing the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Te Deum, and a few other of the Canticles. We feel that with the limitations of the linking with the saints of the present, the linking with those of past ages grows in its value for these ex-Moslems, to whom brotherhood means so much." July 1s1.-Miss Trotter and several of her fellow­ workers started for the Zurich Sunday-School Convention. She wrote: " In the quiet hours on the steamer I have been think­ ing over the matter of the general outlines of advance, of how we should keep to native lines socially, instead of losing power by trying to run on European ones, Slum Post, Shushan Palace, and Egypt r49 " If we study the native lines of intercourse there would be: " 1. For the men-the native cafe, on a Christian footing. " 2. The native story-teller or blind Christian, with his tum-tum or its equivalent. Mr. Smith is getting passage after passage of the Bible now into rhythmical recitative, in which one can hear the native lilt and swing. " 3. For the women-a Christian ' Ziara,' to take the place of the outings to shrines, which are their only chance of fresh air. "4. The 'Dar Naama' classes fo,r the little girls, to learn embroidery and needlecraft. " 5. The Guest House for men and women in families. " These are the thoughts that have come, as lines on which the work would move naturally, with no hampering of uncongenial setting. Time and reinforcements would be needed to bring them to fruition. " One who is travelling with us was talking of the way in which, in the Church's outlook on the mission field, the view is still very general that the Moslems are a doomed race. " A doomed race ! I It does not sound very like ' The God of Hope,' or 'The God of Love.' A doomed creed is nearer the mark ; the husk that imprisons the seed is doomed, that is all. Hallelujah ! " A German scholar said : ' If you say the hour has not struck for Moslem work, it is because you have not wound up your watch. If you say the doors are shut, it is because you are keeping the key in your pocket. If you say the Moslems cannot be converted, it may be that you are not converted yourself.' " " July 1 5th.-Zurich Convention is over and it has been good.'' "Fairhaven, Ram/eh, Egypt, November 4th.--We came yesterday into a new world : long-robed men and women in their cosmopolitan setting of tram-cars and European streets. Out here there is a lovely sense of restfulness within and without, stretches of sand and palm right away to the sea, and the palm in its glory, clustered with terra­ cotta fruit. Such sun-risings and settings as make our Algiers colours grey alongside of them," 150 I. Lilias Trotter " Cairo, November 5th.-A committee day in Dr. Zwemer's study, with a dozen workers or so from Egypt and Syria, all full of keen insight and purpose regarding the strategic lines of advance. From the literature point of view, the links which the Nile Mission Press is weaving through the different lands form a real basis for co-opera­ tion. Another need that we hardly expected to see realized was vividly felt, that of literature in French, for the whole rising generation along the coast, whose studies are carried on in that language almost to the exclusion of Arabic. One feels Cairo is the power-house of forward movements, and we have unknowingly arrived at the time of all times of the year, a fortnight's special lectures, four times a day, giving the cream of a Study Course, and a Converts' Conference next week." " November I I th.-We have plunged, grey hairs not­ withstanding, into the Study Course, taking three or four series of lectures, and writing, far into the night hours, notes of them, for our younger generation. "Apologetics by Dr. Zwemer, Phonetics by Mr. Gairdner, and Arab Mystics by Mr. Swan-all of them splendid. The matter of Arab Mystics throws new light on our battlefield. The Mystics are by no means limited to certain sects in Persia, but all these lands are permeated by their teaching and brotherhoods. One feels a new strong call to bring to them the true mysticism of the life hid in Christ in God, and a new possibility of access on a hitherto untried side. " Mystic beliefs and longings are not generally spoken of. Now one knows of them, one sees why 'the Way' is always the word used by converts for salvation by Christ, a part of the mystic phraseology transmuted. ' The way to God ' is what all these brotherhoods set them­ selves to teach, with elaborations of method according to the character of the seeker." "December 1st.-This morning dawned over the great amphitheatre of lights that encircle the Algiers bay, with the full moon setting at the foot of the Bouzarea hills, and here we are in our battlefield again." SOUTH LANDS AND THE GREAT WAR, 1914-1916

lI LILIAS TROTTER AMONG HER ARABS AT TOZEUR, 19:23. CHAPTER XIV

SOUTH LANDS AND THE GREAT WAR, 1914-1916

IN EGYPT FOR MosLEM LITERATURE

'ANUART ISt.-One great encouragement was the · way that God was working in families as a step J beyond individuals. Lilias writes : " This action of the Spirit of Grace on families rather than on individuals, seems a real precursor of the spring­ time. For not only does it give the sense of backing that these timid spirits so sorely need, but it deals with a social and religious element which is one of the secrets of the tenacity of Islam. When husband and wife stand together, the questions of feasts and fasts, and many other tangles, are solved-at any rate, can be solved." "March 1Sth.-Our start for the south. It is won­ derful to face south once more. To go down, with a Mission House of our own in that land, with settled work begun, and the first-fruits to Christ already gathered, goes out of the region of marvel into miracle. " ' With all confidence, no man forbidding him/ that was the end of Acts long ago; God has made it true again." "March 2 ut.-To-day has marked an era in life with its vision of God's way. At three in the morning we took our tickets for the south. Sunrise came with great scarab­ wings of dusky red behind the purple mountains. On the other side the hills stood in madder against a sky of blue. A bit longer and the scarab-wings had got glorified into the white wings of all the Hosts of Heaven, against a sky of tenderest shades of turquoise melting to indescrib­ able green and mauve as it neared the horizon. 153 1 54 I. Lilias Trotter " How it brought back the day twelve years ago when, turning coastwards through that other gorge, we had to leave the desert lands I All those twelve years we had never seen that sea-line again, only had dung to the word given us that day, 'He openeth and no man shutteth.' Grand was this' Gate of the Lord' through which He brought us back, and it shut behind us so completely that when we· looked out five minutes after, there was no sign of the chasm through which we had come. It brought one into the presence of the worshipping hosts of angels, and of their King. "Was it indeed a railway station? We had hardly time to think with the sight of two figures among the white-robed Arabs. They were there, our own two, with a whole group of boys round them stretching out welcoming hands. Then came the getting to the dear house. " In and out came the boys and men in the afternoon, among them a new' brother,' an open-faced fellow, with a frank, business-like air. Now it is Sunday. We began with a double row of small boys, bright-eyed creatures,, who repeated texts and hymns as if years of Sundays lay behind them instead of weeks. " Then the morning meeting, then a group of big lads to read. It all seems like a dream." " Wednesday.-Sunrise saw us en route. Oh, the joy of it I The same white canopy of wings over us. Our conveyance was a carita, a large wooden shovel without seats, slung on two great wheels, and on such a tilt that our efforts, for the five hours' transit, were concentrated on keeping ourselves from sliding off. We passed westward by the sand-dunes behind which we had camped years ago. What memories it awoke, and what praise for the changed outlook now I The heavenly overshadowing has been very marked. We gave ourselves to God and went out this afternoon to see how and where He would lead. Within five minutes we had come across three of the men through whom the call to this place had come two months ago. " I wish you could see all these streets with their deep recessed horseshoe arches, and the play of light and shade South Lands and the Great War, 1914-16 155 on the bas-reliefs of their brickwork patterns. Such colour, too, that brickwork is, or rather, such a range of changing tones ; ashy grey in dawn, old ivory in afternoon, copper­ gold at sunset, and a strange pale lemon'."yellow afterwards, againstthe dead blue of the eastern sky." She went to England that summer and wrote on August 2 I st : " What days these are, and yet how wonderful already in their transformation of the nation I England has had a renewing in the seven weeks I have been back that would have been miraculous seventeen years ago. I've just been to the midday intercession service in St. Paul's. Such an intensity of quiet reality-no choir, the organ even almost inaudible in the ocean of human voices in ' When I survey ' and ' Rock of Ages.' "

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. (in train to Chelmsford). "August 29th. " Here I am nearing my journey's end with such loving, grateful thoughts of those days with you. I think our ' lease ' has proved a very long one, and time and distance do not change it. I wonder what wonderful things our God will do before we meet again. I remember Mr. In wood (I think it was) saying once, ' When God is going to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty. If it is going to be something very wonderful, He begins with an impossibility.' Amen." " September.-Back to London, from office to office of all the shipping and railway agencies, and hitherto in vain, but the urgency does not seem as great. The Goeben and Breslau, which we feared would bombard Algiers, are safely run in, and now Helen and her two, who were with her in Switzerland, are able to make their way back to Algiers, so there will be again a senior on that side. This is a great relief. " All has gone quietly in Algiers, and those holding on have been kept in peace, though at first they had exciting days, with 2 I 6 soldiers billeted in Dar Naama for a night or two. It is a wonderful thing this morning to wake up I. Lllias Trotter under martial law-to feel that every lesser right in the land is merged in the one right to serve our country. ' Not your own' is scored across the claims of property, of time, of relationship ; and the nation responds as one man. ' Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do,' can be subservient to the one cause; the smallest economy in foodstuffs and fuel has its bearings on the war, and is part of it. All of daily life passes into the mint, and is stamped as current coin 'under the law.' The martial law ' of Christ ' stands illuminated by the passion of loyalty that has swept through the land laying all barriers low. "All the cries for help and mercy going up in these first battle-days, from so many hearts that have been careless till now, must be finding their way to the Throne ; even the ignorant cries from the dark lands involved. They say that as you stand under the dome in Pisa Cathedral, the faintest utterance, even discordant, is taken up by echo after echo in ever-increasing volume overhead, and rained down again like the song of angels. Will the vault of heaven do less?" August I 8th.-The first letter has come from the little church in Algiers, written just before the war broke out : " In the name of the one God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to the presence of our beloved sisters, Miss Trotter and Miss Freeman, and all brothers and sisters in our Lord the Christ, greetings unto you and the mercy of God and His blessing, and now, how much we remember you and make mention of you before God, and pray Him for you and for all the Massihine, and we want you not to forget us and pray for us in the name of our Lord, that He may strengthen us as we read your letter and rejoiced in it greatly, and there greet you, Belaid and Boualem and Mustapha. God has brought us one other, and he has come among us and has entered with all his heart, and pray that God may add others behind him. And He knows the hearts and is always showing me I must walk alone but never alone. And greeting to you from your Brothei:s." November 8th saw Miss Trotter safe back in her beloved Africa. South Lands and the Great War, 1914-16 157 " Back at last, thank God ! and we thank Him from our hearts for the first greetings this afternoon from the converts. There they were, safe and sound, sitting on a mat in the court when I got down from Dar Naama. They had already had their morning meeting; the collection­ box and money-basket, with its collection of coppers, were solemnly handed back by 'Foursquare,' and there is a great sense of his having developed with the responsibility of steering through this difficult time."

1915 . The first six months of this year were spent by Lilias and Miss Haworth in Egypt. " March 4th.-Here, in Cairo, my beloved morning star is shouting for joy every morning, poised above the shafts of the great Mohammed Ali Mosque of the Citadel. Its shouts seem to bring hope of that true dawn breaking over the world of Islam that it figures. " One of the special timings, all unknown, of our coming, is that a whole band of missionaries are taking refuge here. This brings us en rapport with them and their literature needs, as we could not have been otherwise on African soil. They feel as strongly as we do the neces­ sity for papers and books that shall have an Eastern setting, not as hitherto, translated stories of 'Jacks and Bobs,' whose surroundings are as foreign to the children of the East as their names. There is more in the question than the outward fitness of things. This transplanting of material from the West all goes to emphasize the thought, far too widespread already, that Christianity is an English exotic. This thought banishes the hope of a church arising on native lines. The recognition should be that the birth­ place of Christianity was the East. " We are getting into shape the first three tracts-one for women, one for girls, and one for boys. The women's is called ' Water Lilies,' and great has been the labour expended at the N.M.P. to find the real Arabic name, though the flowers enamel every canal with their green and white. ' Grass of water ' and various other names I. Lilias Trotter have been rejected, and finally they have discovered that ' Brides of the Nile ' is their right title. " The next point for these three, and the others that are coming on behind them, is the search for a means of colour-printing. We feel sure that colour must be put into them for these colour-loving people." " Cairo, April 3oth.-The first nine tracts of the new ' colour series ' are through at last, just as our three months' stay expires, equally divided in subject-matter among women, boys, and girls. Faith has risen in the N.M.P. to a large edition. So these first beginnings are awaiting the breath of life to be breathed into them, like the little clay sparrows which, according to the Moslem legend, the boy Jesus told to fly." At a Keswick Convention her little booklet, A Challenge to Faith, had been distributed, and a copy was brought by a friend to Mr. George Swan, Field Secretary of the Egypt General Mission, who writes on the Mystics of Islam. He tells that he owes his call to definite work for Mohammedans to that little pamphlet. Mr. Swan gave lectures in connection with the School of Oriental Studies at Cairo, to which Miss Trotter said she owed much of her inspiration with regard to the presentation of the Gospel to Mohammedan Mystics ; but Mr. Swan says, ". It is I who owe far more to her in this matter, in that, where I was able to present the need, she found the practical ways of providing special literature for the presentation of the Gospel to this class." "May I 8th.-The subject of writing for Mystics seems evolving, for Mr. Swan feels that simple tracts for them would have an immense and hitherto untouched field. By all that Mr. Swan says, the whole religious life of the Moslems here, and specially that of the uneducated, is permeated with Mystic teaching, and ordinary Moslem controvery does not appeal to them. It opens a whole new range of using for them the true Mysticism of the Bible. " The C.M.S. church, within a stone's throw, where Canon Gairdner has charge, has been the greatest joy and uplift of our time here, for its w0rk is pre-eminently among South Lands and the Great War, 1914-16 159 Moslems. The little crypt-like church is full, and the atmosphere, spiritually, is scintillating with light and life. To hear the burst of praise in' Thou art the King of Glory, 0 Christ; Thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father,' in the midst of the strongest Moslem centre in the world, is worth coming here for." "May 3oth.-To-day finds us steaming with low lights and lifeboat swung out and hasty interviews between the inscrutable-looking head of the ' wireless ' room and the captain. Rumour tells of a batch of submarines in these waters, on their way to the Dardanelles, which accounts for the little excitement." On her return to Algiers, Lilias threw herself into the work there, rejoicing over the good tidings received from the different stations, where the outposters were labouring faithfully. The same conflict still raged round the little church. She and Miss Haworth went in September to a small seaside place, Ain Taya, to prepare undistractedly more copy for Egypt. Miss Trotter felt it difficult to leave Algiers, but wrote : " One feels increasingly, in the last decade of normal life, that to get things to go on just as well without one is much to be desired. " I have been thinking, too, how not only all that is most beautiful in manhood and womanhood meet in ' the man Christ Jesus,' but also the ideals of youth and age. He is 'the Everlasting Son of the Father.' " ' His locks are bushy and black as a raven,' in the symbolism of the Song of Songs, and yet in the visions of Daniel and St. John He 'is the Ancient of Days,' His head and His hair as white as snow. 'There is nothing in life that does not find in Him its crowned King.' "

1916 "Dar Naama, January rst.-Another of the years that are ten years. • For life is measured by intensity, Not by the " how much " of the crawling clock.' Will it not be the same, only in better fashion, _when we 160 I. Lilias Trotter step over the bounds into the other world ? ' A day is as a thousand years' over there with the Lord, for all it holds ; eternity is not unthinkable thus." An Arab woman talking to Lily said, after an illness, " And then Idleness sat down on me and has never got up." This certainly did not describe Lilias's gallant fight against weakness and exhaustion.

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " March 2nd. " All spare time of late has gone to wrestling with the tracts for boys in this land, which have been a great diffi­ culty to the poor printer, as well as to me. All his work­ men are at the war-he has only three left out of twenty­ seven-so that one thing after another was spoilt in the litho­ graphing and had to be done over again. We are bringing the tracts out monthly, and they are proving so useful as rewards for attendance, and also as a means of getting into fresh houses. The last time I went to the Arab town I got into three, through small boys wanting the tracts. Under martial law one cannot give them out in the streets." "RuE ou CROISSANT, June 30th. " By the time this reaches you we shall be in the crux of the hardest month of the year on the Moslem field. It is hard for the natives, for Ramadan-fasting from drink as well as food-falls now when the days are at their hottest and longest. It is hard for the converts, with their terror of unknown befallings, if they dare to break free. It is hard for the missionaries, who realize tenfold in this month that they are up against the impossible from the human standpoint. " Pray for all of us here in this land, in the stress of Ramadan conflict, that when the enemy comes in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." SOUTH LANDS, 1917

161 CHAPTER XV

SOUTH LANDS, 1917 OURNAL: " January ISt.-New Year's day dawns at Blida, J. with almond blossoms and huge celandine telling that the spring lies behind all the knotted shells of the winter buds and the ashy boughs of the fig trees. ''Weare here, Blanche, Helen, and I, getting through the work of Egypt copy for the N.M.P., which must be completed before we start south." " January 7th.-I have had a very nice Epiphany dream. In it was I talking to an Arab, and telling him of salvation through Jesus. He leant forward and said in a voice of intense earnestness, ' That is what I want to know.' Three times over the same thing happened, in interview after interview, and I awoke with a cry of joy, ' The thirst has begun ! ' The fragrance of the memory abides, and the sense that any day it may come true, that true Epiphany to them."

FRoM I. L. T. To B. A. F. P. (on the way to Tunis) " Here we are, in the midst of the beloved palms, and have a wonderful time of listening. It is almost like early days of tenting over again in its experiences, and we have not much difficulty in keeping to war-time menus, when all has to be cooked over a pan of charcoal dust and sticks. But Blanche Haworth has a wonderful power of evolving dishes out of a minimum of materials." Journal continued: " January 28th.-We reached Tunis after thirty hours, and next day we joyfully started with our faces southward. " A very joggling train, in which we were the only women. It was dark when we turned out at the Junction, and the sun was up just in time as we plunged into the wonderful chasm gateway. Greetings from one and 163 I. Lilias Trotter another before we were well out of the station. ' We have waited for you each winter,' they said, ' and have asked, Will they not come? ' We decided joyfully to go straight within our own walls, the hotel being closed, so we got our keys, and turned out a bevy of cocks and hens and gazelles who were bivouacking in the court. All was securely locked and nothing missing ; but, of course, all deep in dust. We got a big boy and set him sweeping ; he showed us at intervals the level of his throat, up to which he was choked, and warned us he would die ; but he did not, neither did we, though it was stiff work wrestling through it till all was habitable for Sunday. However, in the middle came a beautiful bit of the Father's care for us in the shape of a lad who was house-boy before the house was shut, and who knew unfailingly where everything was stored, and the place it belonged to. Finally, we wrapped ourselves into our travelling rugs and slept in peace." "Monday.-It is lovely to wake up, morning by morn­ ing, under a palm-wood ceiling, and to feel that another of these priceless days lies before us. The mueddhin's cry rings like a flute before dawn. Then comes the crackle and the scent of the dry palm leaves that light the fire, and then the greetings in the market-place, and the purchase of a ' father of six,' as a six-sous bun-like loaf is called, with one or two of its smaller brothers, from the bread­ stalls. " Then follow four or five hours of interviews and readings, broken only by the dijeuner that Blanche has been concocting over a fire of sticks and charcoal dust ; she manages between-whiles to look into the reading-room and see who is there and give them a word, and otherwise is praying for them while she stirs her pot. " By the time the last set is gone she has tea ready, and then follow several hours of salvage work in one cupboard and box after another. Each of these receptacles we begin hopefully, for the top layer seems fairly intact, but before long we find ourselves brushing, carbolizing, washing, burning, as nests of little devourers get thicker the farther down we go. Curious little beasts they are, of a tribe we have never seen before. We come on crowds of their South Lands, 1917 tiny corpses, like shells of tissue paper, so light that they whirl away at a breath as if still alive. Considering their multitude, it is wonderful how little mischief they have done. "Another earnest soul came in to..,day. He was in A. K. 's class, and now has shot up far towards manhood. ' I used to listen,' he said, ' but now I understand. I have had a great many sins since then, and I want to know how they .can be blotted out.' There was a sense of real con­ viction weighing him down, and a look of trouble in his veiled dark eyes, which made one free to tell him of God's way of peace. " If we settle to keep the house on, we will have to start the necessary repairs. It has become dilapidated to the last degree, and the court looks like a great hovel. This, without doubt, is the best that could be as to convenience and possibilities, and I am glad it is an ancient fondouk­ an Eastern fondouk is very sacred in its memories of Bethlehem. " Our explorations through the rain have been a joy in the sight of the evening lights on the edge of the town ; the colours of the sky and distant crinkled hills are jewel­ like in their purity. " It is wonderful to come back again and again, to find the place unchanged, with its thirsty souls. Surely God has a purpose for this town. " Another soul in, this week, with his face towards the dawn. He had a Gospel and asked for a Testament, and again came the words of infinite sweetness, ' / want to find a ransom.' " But boys, boys, boys are still our chief visitors, always with the same appeal : 'Read to us, talk to us­ give us the Book that we may read.' It looks like the answer coming, away here, to our prayers for the boy-life of the land, this attraction coming upon them Christwards, just at their most impressionable age. " We have definitely come to the conclusion that this is the house for us, and we must go into needful repairs. "A workman in the house does not facilitate the matter of readers, The boy readers, however, are not to be kept 166 I. Lilias Trotter out, and I have not the heart to refuse them, though at times the stone seats that line the porch are the only available place." " March 4th.-A burdened night over signs of rising counter-currents. Corroborating this feeling of uneasiness in the air, a new set of men, young and middle-aged, have appeared to-day in a more or less combative spirit, bringing finally a cloth-robed individual, who is evidently one of the ' great ones.' They were friendly, but their attitude was a different one from the eager-hearted listeners of the past month. "There was a pretty sight in the market-place this morning : a procession of shepherds in from the desert, led off by ten or twelve lads carrying lambs in their arms; and the Lord, with His Shepherd-Heart, will not set the souls down in the road too hard for them to follow-even if the under-shepherds make mistakes." "March 7th.-A tremendous sandstorm has been on, one of the worst known, they say-the air so thick that the fountain in the middle of the ' Place ' has been invisible and all yellow as an old-time London fog ; only, when the sunset tried to shine through it, there came a cadmium­ coloured glow, wonderful to see.'' "March 8th.-ln the market-place to-day came another joyful sense of retrieving, for ' my lord L.' was standing by a stall of camels' meat, and shook hands bravely. He walked back with us to the other part of the town, where sweet carrots and heaps of salted locusts divide the ground, talking openly of a letter from Albina Cox that had arrived, and promising to come and hear, etc.'' " March 9th.-We have entered to-day on our thirtieth year out here, and God has kept the anniversary in one of His beautiful ways, for ' my lord L.' came this morning, and before we had time to begin to read, he broke out suddenly, ' Do you know-there is a ransom ? We are all sinners-sinners-and God has laid the sin on Christ­ and He has blotted it away-away. It is true,' and he stretched out his hand and grasped mine in his eagerness. He was back again in the afternoon as if he could not keep away." South Lands, 1917

"March I Ith.-Is it a storm again ? I think so. It is like old times to have a March storm again in the spiritual atmosphere, for, during many of our difficult years, it re­ curred so regularly in this month that it seemed as if the powers of darkness were keeping thus their anniversary of our landing here. '' We were expecting the men and got the reading-room into order. Such a picture it looked in the fresh whitewash and gold-coloured straw mats, and Mabel's texts hung up on the walls-but none of the men came, only angry voices were heard among the groups always sitting on the pave­ ment below our windows, or on the old Corinthian capitals on each side of the street door. It culminated towards evening, when a tall man came up and harangued them. 'Books,' was the key-word. He seemed to be scolding the others for having taken them, and they answering, ' I have not had one for days '-' not for a fortnight '-' nor I for a week.' The angry voice went on. We went for our sunset walk, and when we came back they were all gone. " The words, ' In Thy name shall we tread underfoot those that rise up against us,' stayed in power all night and on into the morning, when the counter-current was shown, in another form, by the small boys who pushed little crosses, ingeniously made of split palm stalks, under the front door. Poor little Moslem lads, 'they know not what they do.'" " March 1 8th.-When I went out to market yesterday a small boy, very persistent in attendance, stole up under the palm-log arcade, saying, ' They have caused us to stop coming.' Another chimed in,' Yes, they have stopped us; it will be prison for those who come.' No one has been yesterday or to-day. " It may well be that the souls trembling in the balance have felt the shock of opposition rising. One could have wished it to hold off till they were stronger-yet,' Awake, 0 north wind ! ' one must dare to say it as well as ' Come, thou south wind,' if they are ever to grow strong." "March 22nd.-Several grown-up lads in again. " Then came the difficult moment. In walked one of the chief men of the town with the head builder, to 12 168 I. Lilias Trotter examine some faulty work they had put in. He walked past the reading-room door, which always stands open. Should I send the ' Sincere ' off or should I close the door on him that he might remain unseen ? I felt, No, we must not show them the example of fear; yet it was a test of faith when the man, on his way out, looked straight and keenly into the room where the lad sat on the dais, intent on his book. He could not but see him and recog­ nize him as belonging to one of the well-known families." " Friday, March 2 3rd.-Another visitor, of a very different type, made us glad to-day. It was early morning, and I was going out when an elderly woman passed our door, bending under the weight of half a dozen great native cooking-pots that she had made and was coming to sell. I brought her in. B. bought the whole stock for a franc or so, and got her some coffee. What with the sudden relief from her burden, and a sense of being loved, she thawed and thawed, and told us about her home in a far-off village in the oasis, and all her sorrows over her dead babies. She listened dimly to a few words about the sin burden that was heavier than her pots. Then she took B.'s hand and broke out : ' I will come and live with you -I shall look always at this door to see it open again,' and the old face shone. ' The Little Blessed One ' was her name. " It was a gift from the God of Hope-the God of Hope Who shows the new leaf bud set in the axil of the leaf that falls, for it was the first spontaneous advance from any of the womenkind. It may be so likely that among the village women will come the first openings. " Somehow it shed a great comforting over the moment when we went up this evening to look at the last sunset from the roof, as the mueddhin stood with hand upraised, giving the challenge from the ruined minaret eastwards. " One by one as we asked Him, God has brought all those we especially wanted to see, and this morning He wrought, we think, the beginning of another' new thing.' " None of those seekers after His light have ever met here, or given any clue to their knowing one another, and realizing their timidity, we have not dared to take any step South Lands, 1917 in the matter. When the woodcutter was here this morn­ ing, in walked ' my lord L. ' for his farewell visit. It was good to see the flash of surprised recognition and glad­ ness as they greeted each other, and to feel that this first linking had been brought without any touch of ours, and just at the very last, for it was within an hour or two of the train's start. " Even on the way to the station a hand was stretched out for a book from the baker's precincts. " The little figure of Manecdersh, waving to us from outside the station, was the last visible link with all the dear souls left behind. We watched· the sandbanks and the palms of the outlying villages sink away, and then a strange peace, all but joy, settled down on us, and the certainty of God's sequel on beyond-worth waiting for. There is such rest in the fact that each one of those in whom we have seen the Spirit working can read and has his book. ' Is there all I need know in this ? ' asked Faithful, wistfully, over his Testament this morning. How gladly we could answer, ' Yes, all,' and God can use the very separation to make our prayers for them burn." MISS HAWORTH, WITH GROUP OF ARAB GIRLS, 1899.

LILIAS TROTTER, WITH HER CLASS AT RUE DU CROISSANT, 1899. THE HOME CALL OF BLANCHE HAWORTH, 1918 and 1919 CHAPTER XVI

THE HOME CALL OF BLANCHE HAWORTH, 1918 AND 1919 REINFORCEMENTS

1918

FROM F. H. F. TO B. A. F. P. "January 22nd. " LILY is happy and encouraged. She has a Sunday class of little Arabs after her own heart, small rascals off the street, and for them she paints two big Sunday pictures a week, to their mutual satisfaction. And restlessness on the part of the small congregation is quelled by the threat that they shall not see the pictures, and, as you know, the act of painting is rest to Lily; we are very glad over it." To B. A. F. P. Lily wrote: " April 9th. " The entry on the last page of the Financial Report­ ' Examined and found correct, February 5th, 191 8 '-stands out with a meaning, little thought of when it went to the printer a few days later, for the balance-sheet, with the 'make-up' of its preceding pages, was the last bit of A.M.B. service that Blanche Haworth rendered. By the time the proof came back, she was unconscious with fever, and on March 9th, the anniversary that closed the thirty years of night toil in this land, she passed, all un­ knowing that she was going, to the shore where the Master stood waiting."

Journal: " Again we have been through the valley of the shadow 1 73 174 I. Lilias Trotter of death. I had hardly finished writing that afternoon the page telling of Blanche Haworth's passing, when a message arrived saying that Miss Smeeton seemed ill. "Before a fortnight was over, strength failed, and, as with the one who went on before her, she crossed the River all unknowing that it was within sight. " We little thought when she took up her post as House-Mother at Rue du Croissant, five years ago, that it would be to lay down her life among us, but all the time it has been a life laid down in the deepest sense, in its unfailing service of faithful love and help on every hand, and this has been the crown." "April 18th.-The sense has come that there is a new freedom in praying for an outpouring of Pentecost in the land. The very fact that it had seemed a fight with the powers of darkness in March, and a seeming victory of death, makes one feel strangely at liberty to call for the ' initiative ' to pass over to the hands of the Heavenly Host." "May 26th.-There is a wonderful sense of expansion, endless expansion, about our love for those that are gone, as if it had escaped earthly fettering. The pain of the parting is just the rending of the sheath, as it were, to let the flower have its way, and their love for us will have grown in the same way, only in fuller measure, with some­ thing pure, and fathomless, and boundless, and inex­ haustible because in God. It makes one understand a little how, suddenly, they are the same and not the same, because we are already just that, as far as they are con­ cerned. It is like a river that has got past the surf of the shore, and out into the ocean." "Dar Naama, May 29th.-There has been a sudden influx of native guests up here of late. It began with the usual days for batches of them. Girls, women, babies, in garden and woods. The children packed like a bunch of flowers into the old donkey-cart to be brought up. Then began the sign of a new thing here and there. First, it was that a set of better-class women from Kathleen Butler's houses came up. They asked if they might come The Home Call of Blanche Haworth 175 again with friends, bringing their food with them. Then Si El Y azeed, who has lately married a shy, lustrous-eyed, gentle creature from the mountains, asked if he might bring her up together with the family of his partner, and picnic in the Arab court. Then an Aissha of former days, whose little daughters used to come to the Gargaf classes, in their earliest beginnings, asked if she might bring them and their husbands up for a week on the same lines, i.e. being lent rooms and finding their own food."

FROM F. H. F. TO B. A. F. P.

"DAR NAAMA, July 7th. " Here I am at last settled, I hope, for the next three months with our beautiful Lily. At every turn one is reminded of Blanche Haworth who arranged this house so admirably. Lily is fairly well, very busy during the last days of shutting up at Rue du Croissant. She is wonderful. The reaction that many dreaded for her has not come and she says, ' Where God gives strength there is no reaction.' " Lilias writes : " A verse in Cant. 2 has lit up with beauty these days : ' He standeth behind our wall, he looketh in at the win­ dows' (R.V.). 'Our wall,' His and ours, that barrier of things visible that separates us-He on the radiant side, we on the dark side. And the breaches that come through sorrow and love are windows through which that light and love streams in, windows to look out by, not doors as yet, and through them we catch glimpses of His face looking in, and even the multitude of little rifts-the lattice-show Him, too, though more dimly. All the breaks that give us an outlook through the seen to the unseen are infinitely worth while, for those passing visions of the Son of God on the other side.'' "Dar Naama, August Sth.-The days are full with our big household. Its tug-of-war wages round F. The poor child dreads much going among strangers after her sheltered childhood in the mission station. ' I think and I. Lilias Trotter think,' she says, ' till my head falls off and rolls before me. How can I close my ears to all that they will say to me?'" "August 28th.-The Beit Naama party have left, and the wedding will be soon. Apparently F.'s courage is rising to it. ' I will trust Thee,' was her prayer last night. ' I will shut my eyes and trust Thee. Throw me where Thou wilt, I will trust Thee.' "

1919 The spring days, with the liberation of the Armistice, decided Lilias to start off with Miss Krebs to the South land, though still uncertain as to the possibility of getting through. She wrote: " It is like a breath of fresh air, spiritually, to see the hemming in of these war years disappear.'' " March 2 rst.-Alice Mcilroy, Madge Farmer, and I set out together on Thursday on our divergent routes, and next day Alma Krebs joined my train a few hours from the frontier. It was good to get to that frontier station and see the lads' caps with the long, thick silk tassels that mark the Tunisian fez." "South Land, April 4th.-The first week is over. I had asked for a token for good in coming in, and there it was ; the first soul to set foot within our doors with the old cry, 'I want to read,' was the one over whom we went away sad last time, who had gone so fearlessly at first, and then came no more. New-comers and old-comers returned with fresh eagerness, the influx is unceasing. The greater part of the day is spent in close talk with men of the Taleb class, who sit in groups of eight or ten at a time, cross-legged on the golden-matted dais of the reading­ room, and argue round in circles, till at last comes a lull when a straight message from God can be driven in. God comes to our help in a wonderful way for the daily strain. Towards evening we lock the door with its huge brass key and go out among the palms, where the pale green new flower-sheaths are shooting up above the copper- The Home Call of Blanche Haworth 177 coloured clusters that remain ; around us lies the under­ growth of fig, apricot, and pomegranate in its spring tracery, the beauty of it all is full of rest. " A strong sense of opposition holds sway all round, and we are beset by unruly, mocking little lads in the street, evidently egged on by their elders ; and during these last days only boys and lads have come in ; for the most part some of the lads listen eagerly." Good news came from Dellys where the other two had gone. It was five years since their last visit, and at first they were not recognized. The second day one woman said to them, " Many a time, when my heart has been heavy, I have sat here and wondered if you would ever return." " God has His plan for these dear people in Dellys, and for the reaping of many souls." When they reached Algiers, Pierre Nicoud, a young Swiss, had arrived, and his first bit of work was taking hold of a budding Boy Scout Patrol among the French Protestant lads. June found Lilias at Miliana, rejoicing at the new room and its surroundings. She writes : " One's heart goes back with thankfulness to the early days when entrance could only be gained slowly and care,:; fully into one and another of the little homes, so jealously and suspiciously were they guarded. Now, days are all too short and labourers all too few for the endless work and endless openings." " Tipaza, September I 2th.-I came here for two or three weeks' rest and solitude before we all gather up again for the winter's start. Tipaza is a land of waste places, with ruins of the early Christian churches. They stand in a golden brown against the turquoise sea. It is a good place in which to listen for God's 'Go Forward.' Those ruins challenge His power to retrieve His lost heritage. A vision has come in these quiet days of the fallow ground stretching around us out of sight, a realiza­ tion of the two million Arabic-speaking men and boys, and only four European men with any language-qualification I. Lilias Trotter for reaching them. The realization burned itself in until it kindled into prayer for twenty Arabic-speaking men­ ten for ourselves, ten for the other missions. That would not seem a great supply if it concerned earthly need, earthly commerce, earthly warfare. It was a rather piti­ fully small request to put before the King of Heaven, yet so it focussed and so went up. "Even so it would mean, as we know, a launching out of faith ; for no inch of margin remains to our seen supplies, yet as we look back, we can see how God has slowly brought us to this point in many a tender way, sending us funds again and again, only just ahead of the needs that developed. For years we have not been in the dry dock, so to speak, of resting on known resources, but gently the waters have been flowing under our keel, and we have been afloat on God, hardly knowing it ; so now when His word comes at last to ' launch out into the deep,' we know it only means ceasing to hug the shore and keep within sight of human help, and so the cry went on, and those returning from furlough joined in it ; come what might-' send us twenty men j or the Arabs.' " "September 2 rst.-A cheque from a fresh giver has come, posted on the very day that our faith out here launched adrift on God, making it seem His' Go Forward.' " The week before our October Rally brought us the offer from Mr. and Mrs. Buckenham. They are now with us-God bless them I " "Dar Naama, October 9th.-The outposters, such as belong to the Committee, have waited on after the Rally to consider our ways; for this year's story brings a fresh realization to Helen Freeman and to me, that the time for serving our generation may be drawing to a close, and that among the forefront of things to be done lies the putting all the A.M.B. affairs on such a footing, that we could drop out of it at any time without disturbing its equilibrium. We are looking very definitely to Him Who has provided and guided till now so to lead us, as to ensure an open door for His service here till such time as He shall come. He has begun to give the clue as to how it should be carried out." The Home Call of Blanche Haworth 179

FROM F. H. F. TO B. A. F. P.

" December 1 8th. "Lily continues very frail, with a worn-out heart and an eager, dauntless spirit. Often we wonder to see her so well and able to work, and then she collapses."

Journal: " A good New Year's gift from Heaven is being prepared for us, for M. and Madame Cook join us '?n January 1st. More than ever we see that the work among men and boys which it brings within reach is one without which, in a land like this, no true standing out for Christ is possible for the women and girls, unless in very rare cases. " It has been a wonderful year of God's resources." ITINERATIONS IN TUNISIA

lll.1 " THE miracle of Cana has been shining out these days. 'Fill the waterpots with water,' has been their watchword, undiluted weakness transmuted into undiluted strength. It seemed to me as if the first thing we expect of God is that He will tinge our water with the wine of His power. Then when we learn a little better we look for His wine, but feel it must still have an admixture of our water. It is but slowly that we come to see that the mingling is not His way with us. It is all weakness up to the brim, ex­ changed for His ' All power.' " I. L. T. CHAPTER XVII

ITINERATIONS IN TUNISIA

1920-1922 OURNAL: "February 4th, 1920.-0ne of the beautiful new J things of the present time is that Dr. Zwemer and the N.M.P. have entrusted to Mabel Grautoff the illuminating of the Gospel of St. John in Arabic. This came about through what seemed a chance interview with Miss Padwick last autumn. It is a wresting of Islam against itself, using the lovely old Koran missals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to make an edition that will seem worthy in Arab eyes, and so win its way among a class to whom our simple modern volumes seem of small account." The coming of Miss Kemp at this time to join the mission group was a great joy to Miss Trotter.

FROM F. H. F. " March 1 3th. " Lily has such a full house at Dar Naama, but all is well, and, as a French pastor wrote to me, ' The atmosphere there is all love, and praise, and joy.' Blanche Haworth would rejoice and perhaps is rejoicing ; she to}led to arrange the house to its utmost capacity, and she certainly planned imperially." Journal: " May 3rd.-The spring is bringing in a new era ; the war restrictions have melted away, and we are allowed to distribute or sell without let or hindrance. Doors are opening on every side, and can be entered as fast as God sends men and women, and in a way that seemed almost like a dream compared with the block of the long years of the past.,, " May Sth.-It has been a good week, little growing I3 I. Lilias Trotter points have pushed out visibly. The book dep6t started on Tuesday, and on Thursday the first six Arab lads were marched up to the new gymnasium, where ropes and ladders and trapezes had been slung the night before. Then Mr. Buckenham has started on his first colportage."

FROM F. H. F.

" CASTIGLIONE, September 13th. " Lily and I are spending a few days at this restful little seaside place ; she has been so overdone with her own work and other people's. The work has been heavy for her, but so encouraging. She has utilized the summer months by inviting Arab families to come and stay in a set of rooms set apart for them in Dar Naama. More than once Lily had two-and-twenty natives under her roof, including children-and God has greatly blessed." FROM I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " Castiglione. " I must add a scrap while the quiet time lasts. There is no housekeeping to think of, and a wonderful ' sea of glass ' just outside the windows basking in the hot air, and with every spar and sail of the fishing-boats reflected in it, even the clouds and their tints sometimes. We are in a sheltered bay. Helen reads me stories while I work at pen-and-ink illustrations. I am on a little folder now of our Lord's sevenfold 'I ams' of St. John-The Bread, The Light, The Door, The Shepherd, The Resurrection and Life, The Way, The Vine. They are so wonderful in their consecutive unfolding of the way He meets the needs of the soul. " Yes, this last year has seen the last three of our elder ones gathered in ; the door has opened and shut so often lately that it seems more and more to weld, the two lives together, without and within, till there is hardly a sense of severance." Journal continued : " November 2 3rd.-To-night begins the yearly challenge Itinerations in Tunisia of Islam to the Lord, the celebration of the Prophet's birth­ day, the feast of all feasts of the year that throws down the gauntlet to Christianity as his praises ring out round all the Moslem lands. " In our morning prayer time together we asked that in some way Christ would manifest His glory, somewhere, in some one of the mission stations." " November 24th.-We have not had long to wait. Alleluia ! " The next day three men, who had long put it off, after going to the museum to see the effigy of their brother in the faith of long ago-Geronimo, who was built alive into a concrete wall-decided to wait no longer, saying spontaneously that they wished to be baptized and wanted it to be all together and without delay." "December 3rd.-Here is the week's epitome of the way Mohammed's birthday week was celebrated in Heaven : " First day : the three lads asked for baptism. " The third night : Mimoun had his dream calling him to come to us, and Kacete his dream calling him to work, and Aissa got his victory. "The fourth day: the Tozeur contract was signed after twenty-five years' waiting for God's answer to our cry for a pied-a-terre there. " Sixth day : Kacete offered for work. " Seventh : the day of their baptism. Amen, Alleluia I And to-day brought the estimate for the little meeting-room -a wonderfully moderate one." The last entry in her Journal for 1920 is : " Exhaust the human possibilities of a situation and then trust God to do what is humanly impossible." )

1921 " January 8th.-The best gift of the new year so far, is that two Arab sisters have come together and alone-that is, unchaperoned by the old mother-to stay with us. Such a contrast they are-one dark and sparkling, the other with a beautiful, calm, fair Madonna face, with a depth of sorrow in her eyes, the buried sorrow of years that the 186 I. Lilias Trotter new life will illuminate in time, but can never obliterate on earth. " It is a big victory to have them thus en Jami/le, except that they are obliged to have their meals in the drawing­ room alone, to uphold the tradition of not mixing with the men members of the household. It is lovely to have these thirsty souls with us." February found Miss Trotter again starting for the different mission stations. " February I 3th.-Yesterday was a matter of twelve or thirteen hours hard at it-part of them in lumbering motor-buses, and the rest spent in twelve happy visits ; each of them meaning a congregation of ten or twelve on an average, exclusive of small children." February 23rd she was off eastwards with Mrs. Walker (from Denver, U.S.A.) and a Swiss friend. She wrote: " We can see how gently a change is taking place in the atmosphere through the comings and goings of these last years of one and another, each visit helping silently to bring in the thaw, and the disappearance between-whiles helping, doubtless, in their turn to calm the spirit of opposition. It is the way by which God has led before in fanatical places, so we are content to go slowly with Him to Whom a thousand years are as one day. We shall yet see, before we have done, that a day can be also as a thousand years, for we are' les enjants de l'eternite.'" "March 4th.-To-day's path has taken us to another big Tunisian village numbering ten thousand inhabitants, all untouched as yet by the Light. By the sea of heads in the great market-place, quite five or six thousand must have been present, mingled with camels, sheep, goats, and donkeys that they were bargaining over. The next day brought us to a Roman amphitheatre, among the largest in the world. Mlle R. went for a nearer view. I set out with her, but in two minutes was stopped by a friendly look of recognition from a group of men. I had only a leaflet in my satchel, and there was some demur in taking it, but no sooner was it in the hands of the first man, than a younger man, with an orange robe under the white ltinerations in Tunisia burnous, wanted a copy. I went back to the train for what I could find, and when I returned, nine or ten men were gathered waiting for me, and listened quietly and earnestly ; and hand after hand was stretched out till the little stock was exhausted. ' So the kingdom of Heaven is as if a man should cast seed into the ground,' just to put it in the place where God's powers are free to work on it. That is all that we can do, but oh, the joy of doing even that moment's transfer I" " March I 3th.-A wonderful joy has come to-day, a foretaste of the glad surprises of the, life of the world to come. Soon after sunrise Si D. appeared and asked us to dijeuner. He came to fetch us at eleven, walking dignified and stately some twenty yards in front of us. We felt that he was relieved when we turned down his own private street where there were no onlookers. Every door opened, and there flooded out women and girls without number, headed by the old mother in dusky indigo and red, relieved by flashes of pea-green or orange or silver ornaments, all with outstretched hands and loving ques­ tions about the two sons in our care. No resentment, thank God ; more a feeling as if they took us into their family because we had taken their boys into ours. They feasted us royally on their very best. They form a whole clan, inhabiting a cluster of streets, and intermarrying ' that the children may grow up good.' It makes one realize the real sacrifice of the lads coming so far away to a lonely life, and taking unknown wives from practically another race. " But the best was yet to come. A cousin began talking about our first visit in 1895 and how he, a boy then, had come to our tent; so I asked about the two Talebs who seemed in those days to come over the line to Christ. " 'Both are dead,' he replied; 'both were of our family. It was with them I used to come every day.' Thus the long-stored prayers for those two, whic~ seemed to have brought so little result, are coming to fruition now that a quarter of a century has gone by-fruition in the family left behind that has gathered the first-fruits to Christ." 188 I. Lilias Trotter On Lilias's return to Algiers the days were full of preparation for the weddings of the Tozeur brothers. "Dar Naama, June 4th.-These have been two busy days, turning upside down the lower story of this dear house which, with a kaleidoscopic turn, adapts itself to things as widely apart as a missionary conference and a native wedding. I must say the latter is the more pic­ turesque episode, when all falls into line. Our great endeavour is to keep it thoroughly native and thoroughly Christian. Only those who know how every strand of Moslem life is interwoven with its religion and its super­ stitions will realize the difficulty. It is well worth the study, if only we can get to the uttermost of sympathy with them, unwarped by compromise .... "To-day is over by God's grace. We all met the little bride in the garden with the customary ' you-yous ' of shrill joy. " Everything centred in the wedding service of the early afternoon. Bride and bridegroom came in full native costume from opposite doors into the central court, and sat side by side in the front seats-the women friends and the men friends behind them on each side of the dividing curtain. Then came prayers and collects in Arabic and French, and then the moment when Monsieur Cook joined their right hands and laid his on them. "We hear that when they got into their rooms in the evening, they sang together once more their wedding hymn, ' Peace, Peace, Peace.' " If the husband is pleased with the bride he goes down on the wedding morning and buys her sweetmeats and nuts, so when a plate of these dainties was sent up to us at midday, we rejoiced. 'Joy is the first step in God's blessing,' said Aisha as she brought it in." " July 1 2th.-We have beaten our record these last days in having sixty-seven souls under our roof, almost all on their own, so it is not a matter of hospitality, only of pack : thirty-five Girl Guides, who slept on the floor of the central court, then the Cook family, numbering seven, the Arabs twelve, and the rest ourselves.'' "July 14th.-A lovely birthday. It began with an Itinerations in Tunisia invitation last night to supper with Belaid and Chrira. They were so pleased when I told them it was my birthday, and the piece de resistance being sheep's trotters was very appropriate.'' "August 25th.-It has been a happy summer with the dear bunches oi natives about the place. There is a real spirit of love all round : either I get asked out to supper at one end of the house or the other, or a plate of stew is brought up, or a hunk of water-melon in its wonderful crimson and green, or a sugar cake or two, or my bath towels get carried off for a private washing and come back fragrant with a scented jasmine wreath folded in-all little precious tokens, and with them the glad sense of the happy spirit of help and fellowship." " October 12th.-It is wonderful to see God's working in drawing the men together up here. In old days the converts used to be like little dust-coated balls of quick­ silver, and would roll up near one another, and even touch, but never coalesce. Now they have run together in a way that marks a fresh era." 1922 March 16th.-Miss Trotter and a friend stayed at Tebessa at Miss Cox's mission station. They found her seriously ill, and when they reached Tozeur the news came to them that she was gone. 'Journal continued : " A great blow has fallen on the Church of God in this land. Albina Cox left us yesterday. Such was the news that greeted us as we stood once more on the plat­ form of the Tozeur station. It seems hardly to be believed; she has stood out all these years a unique soul in her indomitable courage, hopefulness, and patient love, as well as in all her natural gifts. A sudden change for the worse came a few hours after we left on Sunday, and con­ sciousness never returned, till she woke on the other side of the River." "April yh.-Left Tozeur, but with such hopes that the winter will bring Mr. Theobald and the book-room and club for boys." I. Lilias Trotter There is here a long pause in the Journal entries­ just this sentence written April I 5th : " Keep their hearts as oil in the midst of water that will not mix!" " May 4th.-Many days without an entry, for I col­ lapsed and am still in bed, out of the strife that has been going on before Ramadan. I have been thinking, with regard to the difficulties around us, of the word in Isaiah I. 10, to those who, though living in obedience, are yet for a season ' walking in darkness and having no light.' It comes with a fresh beauty how there are two kinds of darkness in the world-cloudy darkness and cloudless darkness. The heaviness of a beclouded night­ sky is never meant to be ours, but there is such a thing, as we know well out here, as a radiantly clear night-the brilliancy of the daylight is not there, but the shutting off on the earthly side means visions of the heavenly : • Who would have dreamt such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, 0 Sun, or who could find While tree, and leaf, and insect lay revealed, That to these countless worlds thou mad'st us blind.' " So in the hours of temptation and perplexity, of hopes deferred or seemingly blighted, the one thing is to have the cloudless darkness that lends itself to vision, instead of the cloudy darkness that shuts it out. And these starlight skies, these treasures of darkness, are ours by the Precious Blood." " July zoth.- ' God will finish what He has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there, His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere.' (ROBERT BROWNING.) " We are needing those words these days, for the atmosphere is difficult."

FROM I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " BtrnA, September. " I want to write before getting back to the dear crew at Dar Naama, specially with those on furlough arriving and the Rally coming on. We got off for three weeks, Itinerations in Tunisia and it is so quiet and beautiful you would love it, with the long lines of the plain and the mauve mountains beyond. " I am mending really now, thank God, and I have been very happy in the quiet time, able to get through a good deal that could not be fitted irito the busy days­ native literature, things that had been hanging fire. All the dear seniors have been giving first-rate help in running the show at Dar Naama with its Arab guests. ·" At Christmas Mr. and Mrs. Theobald joined as two new workers, and Monsieur Pierre brought his bride as a fresh reinforcement." " December 2 8th.-The same Lo~d of all power and might, to Whom nothing is of small account, has been mindful of us in many beautiful ways in the year that is ebbing. It was in the January committee that we decided to go forward into a path of definite faith, despite an almost empty exchequer, and now we can look back on every need supplied, and a far larger balance in the Mission account than when we began the year. • He has the best things for the few Who dare to stand the test. He has the second best for those Who will not have the best.' "Two other onward steps have marked it besides that of Colea-one, that the Mascara house has passed into the ownership of H. Freeman, with all it means of stability for the work there ; the other, that the long prayer for increase of accommodation for Mlle Gayral at Mostaganem has come. " But the main thing that stands out, in looking back over the year, is the changing spirit among the Moslems, indefinable as yet, but as unmistakable, it seems to us, as the first faint spring breath. We have here, at Dar Naama, a reproduction of a Danish picture. It is a frozen river, grey in its icy deadness, but the breath of the spring is beginning to conquer ; through the midst of it the first flow of the current has begun to gleam, reflecting the purple fir-trees, the daffodil sky of dawn in its curve. It is worth, a thousand times over, to spend one's life among the Moslems, to see that hour draw near. I. Lillas Trotter

' He sendeth His word and melteth them, He causeth His wind to blow and the waters flow.' " His word and His wind-that is all these lands need. Financially we have been learning our lessons, though we are not yet much beyond the ABC stage in the school of faith. "The beginning of 1922 found us at the lowest ebb that we had ever experienced in a place where we were shut up to God's intervention on our behalf. In answer to our cry it came, and He has shown us repeatedly since then how wonderful are His resources. " Pray that, above all, in the din of the strife we may never lose the echo of the cry ' that thirsted for the souls of men,' and that the love of the Crucified may spur us on, till we can bring them safely to the place where ' He shall be satisfied.' " AMONG THE MYSTICS OF THE SOUTH, 1923

193 CHAPTER XVIII

AMONG THE MYSTICS OF THE SOUTH, 1923

"J'ANUART 6th.-The Committee and Rally days have been very short this year, but I think 'the end is · not yet,' praise the Lord. With a strange oneness of impulse, we all feel that we must put to the front the needs of the inland places that have never heard, or, having heard, show signs of response. Without any previous comparing of notes, we found that three pairs of us were hoping for the way to open South, by one of the three lines of penetration that link the coast with the desert." " February 5th.-A thing which may mean very much to the cause of Christ is shaping itself. Dr. Smith, of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, has been appointed to literature work and to the task of organizing training for converts." " March 9th.-Thirty-five years-half a lifetime-out here closed last night, and a tide of thanksgiving goes up to God, for the ' long patience ' that has borne with all negligences and ignorances and has found a way for His mercy and His power to work in spite of all. The out­ working of His grace has come so silently : ' not with observation,' like His work in every growth around, so that one can hardly tell when or how the expansion occurs. All that one can say is that we have had nothing to do with its evolution except a measure of blind obedience. Oh, that that measure had been fuller! " The threefold prayer of early days comes back to memory. First, that doors might be opened : that is answered already above all we could ask or think. Then, that hearts might be opened : and that is coming-the attitude has swept round from apathy to hostility, and from hostility to a large measure of welcome. Next, and last, that the heavens may be opened-when that is granted, the harvest will come. I read a passage the other day that spoke of' the intense value of a collective, corporate blessing 1 95 I. Lilias Trotter as a vehicle for the working of the Holy Ghost.' That is where our need lies now. Who will help to bring down its supply from the same Hand that has granted the open door and the open heart ? " The visits of the different members of her family were a source of the greatest pleasure to Lilias. On one occasion Mr. William Trotter carried her off on a never-to-be­ forgotten holiday in the hills above Elida, and in March 1923 Miss Freeman writes : "Lily has gone off with Mrs. Egerton and Mr. Alec Trotter to Tolga. She is very frail now and the journey is long, but the delightful change and the desert air, and her pleasure in having her brother and sister with her will, we trust, very much more than make up for the fatigue. I heard she was radiantly happy. Her brother and sister, to Lily's great joy, fully appreciate Algeria. She was looking forward to the passage through El Kantara gorge. Just as I write comes a letter from Lily, en route for Con­ stantine, and full of the loving-kindness of the Lord." Journal: " March 2 9th.-To-day came the wonderful moment of passing through the' gate of El Kantara,' where, twenty­ one years ago, we went up with the desert closed behind." " March 3oth.-We are within the mud-walls of beloved Tolga, dearer than ever before for the hope deferred of all these years. " I used to think that relief was the nearest thing that we can imagine in all the unimaginable joys of the life to come, but there is another and a better thing that age shows, and that is retrieval. The ' triumph in Christ ' that it brings is a foretaste of the day that is coming." " April 3rd.-How these South lands get hold of the inmost fibres of one's heart, waking a strange intensity of caring ! I feel there is a promise in that fact. As in the world of physics the heat vibration, intensified, kindles into light, is it not in the spiritual world as in the natural, that life awakes from love? 'God so loved ... that we should have everlasting life,' and this makes one believe that in letting go to this heart-love for the South land, we are setting the God-wrought love free to flow, that it may Among the Mystics of the South, 1923 197 be the life channel. ' God so loved that He gave '-that is what came between the love and the life. "It touches one's heart, this place, beyond words. The memory of the fortnight that we spent here in 1 900 and the three or four weeks in I 902, seems strangely fresh all round. Everywhere in the streets there are hands stretched out in welcome-gaunt hands of old men who were in their prime then, strong brown hands of the middle-aged men who were but lads when we saw them last. "To-day brought a fresh joy in getting to another village. The first Arabic sentence gathered the men, and still more when the news ran round : " She knows about the Brotherhood and the people of the Road.' In this part of the desert the Brotherhoods hold sway, and there must be jewels for Christ's finding amongst these souls. Through the mazes of their fanciful mysticism there is an instant response when one speaks of seeking Him Who is Light and Life and Love. Oh, for men to come to help them !-Christian mystics in the true sense, knowing the power of Christ, ' I in them and they in Me.' " Late in the afternoon I had another greeting from a stately Taleb. ' I remember you when I was a little fellow : I came to you and you taught me hymns and you gave me a sugar plum. I am glad you are coming to live with us.' " Colea, too, passes to-day out of its first probation stage into that of a bona fide station, for the Buckenhams have proved that its openings and spirit of hearing deserve this. Again it is a case of retrieval, for the first we knew of it some thirty years ago was that Mr. Pope and Mr. Brading were stoned out of it when they went there for colportage. I remember our saying to each other in those days that there ought to be a future for the place, for it knew its own mind." "May 2nd.-The third and best retrieval-the Tolga House is ours for God ! I That is the news the post brought us. I could never doubt, from the first minute in its Skiffa, that it was the place He had prepared for us, and yet there is always a wonderful joy in seeing faith pass into sight." I. Lilias Trotter " July 9th.-There is another point in this year's advance on which God seems to be concentrating one and another of us, that is the Sufis, the fraternities of Mystics who have had age-long sway in the mountain districts of the land. " I feel more and more that we ought to make a special study of them, for the line of approach that we use for Moslems of the ordinary class slips off these souls without gripping them, whereas, read them a few words, say from St. John's Gospel, or one of the Epistles, and there is a response at once. Of all the millions of Islam, they are far and away the truest seekers after God, albeit in a weird and dangerous path. "Talking of these Brotherhoods, some one told me that as their members travel about these are their pass­ words:

MAKHAN ! ZEMAN ! IKHOUAN ! That is to say, 'Place, Time, Brothers I ' " It seems to give a clue to the viewpoint on the world in general and on the Church in particular, held by our two mystics, for, brought up as they are in that atmosphere, it is interwoven into all their ideas. This thought to give and take on a community basis pervades everything to the exclusion of business arrangements. They absolutely and honestly fail, apparently, to understand or accept the prin­ ciple of a day's work for a day's wage, but if you put the matter on the principle of the work having to be done and needing a shoulder to the wheel, they are at once at your service. It is a distinction with a difference. " The old ' Sheikh ' Ouzani has a strain of Sufism about him. This is the story of his first contact with the truth, taken down by dictation. Whether it was a real encounter with some Christian or a dream, pondered over till it seemed a fact, we cannot tell. This was fifteen years ago, before he lost his eyesight. He was a markedly pre­ pared soul when Mabel met him. " ' I was walking in a certain place and I saw a man reading a book. I went to him and stood at his head. I said, " What do you read ? " He said, " Will you read ? " Among the Mystics of the South, 1923 199 I took and read, read twelve chapters-it was the Gospel. He turned to me and said, " Is it good ? Are you pleased with it ? " " Yes," I answered. He took it from my hands saying, " I need the book, I cannot give it ; I must go now, I am from another land." I gave him five francs. He thanked me; there was much light in his face. "Oh, you can read," he said. I answered, " We have none in the town, I am an Arab ; this book is not found among us here." " You will find it," he said. He shook hands and went. I waited long for him and sought in the market, thirsted for him, but never me~ him again. But the fire remained in my heart. I went home. I wept, yes, wept for him, but was silent. I spoke of him not, but the spirit was in my heart. Fifteen years passed till a Christian came. We began to read, and I remembered that man. His book, I found, was the same ; the Holy Spirit told me He, the Christ, was light in my heart. Ah I I knew then that it was the same Gospel. " ' For all those years after he left me no one had spoken to me, no human voice ; it was the voice of God only that took me out of darkness into light. The light increased in me. Ah I if only I had my sight I would go now to the South and teach my Brothers. To-day I beseech my Brothers to take heed to the new Gospel, this way of truth, none other like it. Christ, He is the Redeemer, He will enter you into the Heavenly Paradise. Oh, servants of God, oh, servants of God, turn round and take the way of Christ. The mediation of Christ. He is the Lord who sent the Holy Spirit. He is the Lord of Light. Turn as I have, and follow Him, the Redeemer. Oh, servants of God, He is your life, He pardons you; see this treasure, this blessing ; turn, oh, turn, trust the Redeemer I His is a plain road.' " These words from the Sheikh Ouzani, no other told me. God our Lord Jesus the Holy Spirit gave me these words and this light ! " The outposter who was taking down these words asked : 'Tell me of that man you first met. How was he dressed ? How did he look ? ' ' He was not dressed like an Arab nor any European I had seen before, but in 14 200 I. Lilias Trotter long white garments, yes, all white, and as I looked at them they were dazzling, they shone-I have never seen another like him. His face shone ; he had a sort of crown of white round his head, and after he left I looked and longed and wept for him, and waited a long while. In later years, when I fell ill, I prayed in my illness, in Christ's name, that some one would come and tell me, and you came.' " ' But all those years, did you hear nothing more of Christ ? ' ' Oh, when I read of Jesus Christ in the Koran, my heart used to go so (opening and shutting his hand quickly) at words about Him, till I read the Gospel. Then I knew, the Gospel explained and I knew.' " I told the Sheikh that you wished for his Christmas letter, and he has dictated this for you, that you may know, as he loves to reiterate, that God revealed the truth to him those many years ago by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is true, for his great theme is love to the Lord Jesus, a love even before he knew Him as Divine Son of God." "November.-These November days are divided be­ tween threshing out the preliminaries for Dr. Mott's Conference and getting things wound up as far as possible for starting with Mrs. Walker to Tolga next week." " November 2 3rd.-A wonderful, beautiful night, a silver-gilt land, with dark silhouettes of Aleppo pines and cork trees to break it, then the cherry-coloured dawn behind the crags of the highway to the desert. Then the salt lakes doubling over the faint rose and blue of mountains and sky, and then, with a deeper beauty than the outward one, the finishing of Him 'whose work is perfect,' came in a chance talk in the train with a well-to-do Arab. He proved to be from a country place on the tableland. This place was deeply linked with those last days at Tolga that we are going down to retrieve, through a party of men, a pilgrim group, who were with us then for hours each day, drinking thirstily their first drops of living water. From that time until this talk in the train no touch had come with them. Our fellow-traveller can get books to them. "Next came the joy and wonder of getting to our own house, and seeing the dream that had hung in mid-air since 1900 land on earth at last. To-day, in one of those Among the Mystics of the South, 1923 201 long rooms with the palm-stalk ceiling, we had, all four of us, the first Christian prayer-meeting that Tolga has ever had. Oh, the joy of waking up this morning to the palms and the shriek of the darling Bou Habib sparrow who comes to my window-sill before the first ray has glittered through the fronds, to see if there are any crumbs for breakfast I I think that the sparrows of Galilee that Jesus loved must have been Bou Habibs." " December 5th.-From another oasis : " Here we really are, praise the Lord beyond all telling I We were received by the Caid and a row of notables, and taken in to drink coffee before being led to , the house appointed for us. A big court of sand, with an arcade at one end for kitchen, and three rooms, to say nothing of a Skiffa, a stable, and various outhouses, all the walls interlaid with these gypsum crystals that are the stone of the region. They are like flying wings, chrysanthe­ mums, and butterflies all set in the cement of their brother crystals. We had hardly arrived before visitors streamed in upon us, women and girls, in group after group, full of excitement-far too full to get beyond things visible. When we got out later, for a bit, to take our bearings, a flood of boys and girls followed ; and then again visitors on visitors when we got back. Alma disappeared with one of them and stayed so long into the darkness that we went to look for her. We found her not far off in an alley, having paid six visits, and had an invitation to spend the evening with these people. What a sight it was I A solitary candle held over Alma's head, which was swathed in an orange­ and-white scarf, on each side of her a blue-robed figure; beyond that all was dark but for the flash of huge earrings and a string of coins. It was the story of Bethlehem that was being told them for the first time, and the Immanuel of Bethlehem was there. " To-day has brought fresh tokens for good. We went to find a shop that would produce nails, and were invited to the mosque. In came a tall Taleb who rever­ ently kissed the tract Alma had given him, ' The Sermon on the Mount.' There was a wistfulness about him, and he said he would come and see us. 202 I. Lilias Trotter "In the afternoon he came with another man. They said they had met missionaries in their wanderings, ' but no one comes here, we are too far away. If they come only once in ten or fifteen years, how can we remember ? , Next it was the Caid with one of the head-men evidently. Again the same note. ' We have not these books ; -there is no shop where we can buy them. You do well to bring them to us, God will reward you '; and again loving words of welcome. "Then came another joy. I had heard at the market that our camel-driver of twenty-five years ago was still alive, and we sent him a message which reached him last night. To-day, by 2 p.m., he was here, warm-hearted as ever, and fell to kissing my hand as if he could hardly stop. He produced a live brown hen and forty-four eggs with which he had trudged thirty kilometres in heavy sand, since daybreak. He is nearly sixty and has a racking cough. It was touching to see how every incident of the past was remembered, every well where we had halted, how many days we had stayed in each place-but the little bit that had penetrated his dull orain of the story of Jesus had nearly worn away with the trend of years. We never felt it had got beyond the brain, and now we could only repeat it to him in the simplest way, hoping even yet, that ' at eventide it might be light.' " THE CONFERENCE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, 1924 CHAPTER XIX

THE CONFERENCE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, 1924

LAST V !SIT TO ENGLAND

"ALGIERS, January 13th.-The,next thing ahead is the Mott Conference in February. The point that focusses, so far- as I am concerned, and on which I have to write a paper, is the need for help for the child­ wives of the land when they are tossed, as they constantly are in their teens, from one husband to another, with intervals of disgrace at home, harpies in the shape of evil women drugging them, to drag them into the depths of sin. " According to Arab law, though there is no appeal from marriage for the first time, a protest against re­ marriage can be raised, but it is seldom that the woman dares to do it, left to her unequal combat ; still more seldom that it is carried through. With the French backing, it would be another matter, and lives could be freed for God's service. The day of that backing seems drawing near, for a stir is coming through the amazing apathy of the land over the woes of its women." "Constantine, February 5th.-Mr. Mott met us at the first s-athering this afternoon, with the words that had a ring in them of a heavenly message : ' I know you have been through difficulties. Difficulties are the beckoning hand of God.' " "February 12th.-Now, with Saturday's good-bye to the Motts came a startling finale ; the invitation to join the Algerian Delegates at the final conference in Jerusalem.,, " March 19th.-Off at last after many parting words and deeds, for it will be the end of July before we return." " March 2 ISt.-After a passage so calm that one had to look out at the sea to be sure that we were moving, we came into Port Said this morning. A sight of Miss :ios 206 I. Lilias Trotter Ericsson and her school, and then through a sunset land for an hour or so, and across the canal by a quaint, clumsy ferry, into a train on the other side marked, wonder of wonders, ' Jerusalem.' " "Jerusalem.-The first impression was of the small scale of everything, but before nightfall one came to realize that this is an intrinsic part, that God wants to show us that nothing is great or small to Him, Who inhabiteth eternity, in its dimensions of space as well as time, and that it is a pivot land, and pivots are apt to be small things in the eyes of those who do not understand the meaning." Miss Trotter went off by motor with a party of dele­ gates, this being the only possible way of getting a sight of the land in the few days before the Conference. Journal continued: " Before we had gone half an hour the strange sense of strain and oppression that had hung over us in Jerusalem had lifted, and one could lay one's spirit open to all it would mean. " And it meant infinitely more than I ever thought it could-one just longed to sit down and read the whole Bible through, from Joshua onwards, with the intense visualizing of every bit of it. Then came the hallowing sense of the Lord's footsteps when we got to Sychar and looked down the well that is deep as ever, so deep that only a tiny quivering circle can be seen far down. Then away to Galilee that He loved, with its villages and its simple folk, all in its spring beauty of flowers and budding fig trees. All our own North African flowers, except that the anemones are crimson instead of mauve as with us, and it brings a hallowing over our blossom-time there, to know that they have their sister flowers here, and that they must have been dear to the Lord's eyes and heart. Then came Nazareth with its great view over the plain, through the gap where they planned to cast Him down headlong ; and then Cana with the water-trough still there, from which the waterpots were filled that wedding-day ; and then, in mid-afternoon, we came over the last brow of the hill--country, and saw the Lake of Galilee lying far below, with Hermon, like a snow crown poised in mid-air, away The Conference on the Mount of Olives 207 back from the far end between Chorazin and Bethsaida, where Jordan flows in. We went down to the shore at Capernaum, where one of the few incontestable sites stands evidt:nt i!1 the ruins of the syn~go~ue, _and spent the. night at T1berias, and saw them brmg1ng 1h their nets 1n the early morning. So'back with the double imprint on one's heart of hearts, of the utter loneliness and worshipfulnesss of the Human Life that was lived out there. One feels the vision that came of that Life can never fade." " April ut.-To-day took us to the garden Tomb which, far more than any of the supposed sights, bore the touch of reality. · " Here, again, one felt that one's soul could worship in a strange new way the Lord Who found, if not in that very tomb, in the rock one close by, ' where to lay His Head ' at last." "April 3rd.-To-day we started gathering our forces up here over against the gate in the Russian community that crowns the Mount of Olives. We women lodged in the sisterhood's buildings in a comfort touching in the midst of the evident poverty of the community, a crypt for our refectory, and the Conference in the church, where the long, red baize-covered tables looked strange below the Icons. It is a wonderful place to have chosen for us. Islam, with its challenge, camped down in its grey mosque of Omar, like a crouching creature on the temple area, and the Moslem cemetery covering the hill of Calvary, on the one hand, and on the other, from Olivet itself, the counter-challenge of the Lord to the faithfulness of His Church : ' Into all the world-to every creature.' " It is a very wonderful gift of God to meet thus face to face with those from the battle-line, right along from our North African shore away to Persia, and Persia very spe~ally; for of all the people here who have a message for us, Bishop Linton of South Persia stands out pre-eminent. Other real heart-linkings are with Bevan Jones of India, and the Bishop of Jerusalem, Bishop Gwynne of the Sudan, and the re-knitting with Mrs. Zwemer, and with Canon Gairdner: a blessed company of faithful people with whom we are heirs through hope." 208 I. Lilias Trotter " April 6th (Fifth Sunday in Lent).-The days have been as full as their hours will hold. To-day, all being through except final discussions on the findings, we swung off into Sabbath-keeping. The Communion service in the chapel of Government House. It is good to see our flag flying, and to realize that, our sins and shortcomings notwithstanding, God has given us the honour of protecting the land for the time being. Then a wonderful address by Dr. Mott on the needs-be for keeping a quiet time with God. Then a pilgrimage of a big string of us, under guid­ ance of Bishop Mcinnes, down to the outskirts of Bethany. It was good to see the one place where our Lord had a bit of home-life and a sure and loving welcome, and at every turn of the holy pathway, still rugged and stony, that led to Olivet, we halted for reading and hymn-singing. "Lastly, at the sunset hour all of us were with Bishop Mcinnes at the wall that overlooks the whole of the city, outstretched below, singing together, 'When I survey the wondrous Cross,' and there we closed the day." " April 8th.-Yesterday was a mighty day-fourteen and a half hours of steady working at the findings. " This morning brought the last standing ' within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem,' the last most likely till we stand to­ gether with Christ. There seems something of the wrench and ache of parting with a heart-friend as we leave the land behind. One of the gifts of these two weeks has been a strange new sense of fellowship with God in the love of it." So was fulfilled Miss Trotter's heart-wish to find herself in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In the Committee meetings she revealed what Mr. Basil Mathews describes as " the unquenchable, mystical, fighting love of Miss Trotter of North Africa." Journal: "April I 6th.-Cairo, with its thronging, pulsing life, was left behind this ·morning, and then came the mud villages of the Delta and its wonderful stretches of corn in every shade of green and gold. Even there, there is a touch of the hallowing from ' the days of His flesh,' for it must have been here that His child feet learned to walk, The Conference on the Mount of Olives 209 and His lips formed their early utterances. The sand and the palms by the great river were among the first sights for Him of the world that had sprung into creation ' by Him and for Him.' " "April 19th (on the steamer to Algiers).-Even here, on board, His hand is manifest in its fitting together of need and supply ; for though I have tried to dig into every vein of possible ore on the subject of the Sufi, there was not very much that had become available, except through Mr. Swan. But now here is a very mine of wealth on board, in the person of Professor Margoliouth, who, in his gentle, patient way, lets it' be explored in every direction. He has given us a complete list of the books that will help us most in Arabic, French, and English ; also every definition one asked for, of words in the technical phraseology which, for the most part, have no equivalent in ordinary Arabic. It comes, this last of God's rich gifts, as a fresh impulse in getting to work with the outline, at any rate, of' the secret of secrets,' though it may need many months of getting ' introduced into feeling,' as the old Quakers have it, to the needful extent of getting it into its final shape. Even so, it comes somehow with a sense of pressure and of ' message ' that I never remember having had since the days, half a lifetime ago, of the first Parable book-at any rate, nothing like to this extent. So I hope it may show Jesus to some of these dear souls in their ·misty, intricate groping after Life, and Light, and Love. That would be worth anything, if it :rp.ight be." Miss Trotter and Miss Freeman went to England for the summer. Journal: " Bournemouth, May 1 2th.-The Sufi Book is taking shape, so as to get ready for what Oxford may bring in the way of possible finds, at the Bodleian, in the way of decorative headings, etc., such as the natives love. It is odd when I pray over it, how, again and again, the last chapter of St. John comes up in vision with its last cast into the sea, and again and again comes almost like a promise, ' great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three, brought to land.' ..." 210 I. Lilias Trotter After Oxford she came to Sheringham. It was a wonderful visit. She seemed to have grown so very great, calm, and joyous, with all the lines of anxiety smoothed away by deep peace. I said to her, " Lily, you seem so rested in soul." She answered, " Yes, because I have no strength left, and am living entirely by the power of the divine inflowing." She told me a French specialist had said that her heart was so worn out there was no physical reason for her remaining alive at all. She felt that it was only that Christ, our Life, gave her power till her work on earth was done. While she was talking she was drawing with exquisite delicacy the borders of her book for the Arab Mystics. One who met her here for the first time said : " I can never forget the impression she made on me-those wonder­ ful eyes I I never saw a face before on which was so plainly engraved a whole life's history-such a beautiful worn face." A former Oxford don, not an adherent to orthodox religion, said: " I shall never forget the impression I received, when first I met her ; the mere look in her face and touch of her hand made me feel that she was spiritually apart from the ordinary run of people one meets." She then went to the World's Sunday-School Associa­ tion Conference at Glasgow, and afterwards joined Miss Freeman for the Keswick Convention. Mr. Upson said that she acknowledged that she found " the pace at Glasgow killing," and soon after her return to Africa she was obliged to take to her bed, when she wrote to me : " If only people knew how comfortable it was to be bedridden I think they would all wish to take to it," which shows what a fight it had been to her to go on. " Algiers, September I 9th.-The finance subject was uppermost in the prayer-meeting this morning, as well it may be, for we face another quarter day on the 30th. We have to clear off our debt of £200 and meet the fresh needs. " It may be, too, that the stretching out to these sky­ lines, even when for the time we stand in a low place as The Conference on the Mount of Olives 2u we do now, makes glad the Captain whom we serve : ' The clouds are the dust of His feet '-we see the dust now ; we shall see His footprints when He has passed along the way. "This last entry has overflowed into some very quiet days, by order of Dr. Dana, whom Helen called in to enforce her counsels in that direction. I suppose that the natural result of letting go, after living at pretty high pressure since the end of March, is that one should find oneself in low water, such low water that there is every hope that God is going to do something fresh. His new things began on Sunday by His sending a cheque for £100 for the General Fund. This is lying beside me in the drawer of what used to be the table of my father's dressing­ room-the drawer he used to call my garden, the other one alongside being Alec's. He used to hide in our respective gardens any little gifts, picture-books, or toys that he had picked up on his way from the City, and now this wonderful gift from " the Father of all Mercies " lies there with all it means of pressure removed. " Another cause for thanksgiving by faith is that, with more on hand for writing than I ever remember before, here I lie with no power for putting two thoughts together. If this is, as it seems to be, the vocation for the winter, it starts with an impossibility. For these and all His mercies the Lord's Name be praised." " September 3oth.-Here is the long-looked-for day of putting God to the test of His promise for His supply, and, oh, glory to His name ! He has accepted the challenge. Another batch of English letters to-day, only to be accounted for, it seems, by being brought by the angels, for some extra steamer had been put on, and here was a cheque for £30 putting all afloat. It was the most wonderful inter­ vention in this direction that we have had yet." " October 2nd.-And here comes the sequel by this post. We had asked that now, since as a Band, God has shown us how to put our shoulders to the wheel on the side of finance, He would bring it in from other sources -and here, by the very first boat of the new quarter, comes a gift from unknown people in Scotland, with its joyful seal that we are 'in the way of His Steps.' " 212 I. Lilias Trotter

" October I 7th.- , Two glad services are ours, Both the Master loves to bless. First we serve with all our powers, Then with all our helplessness.' These lines of Charles Fox have rung in my head this last fortnight, and they link on with the wonderful words, 'weak with Him.' For the world's salvation was not wrought out by the thirty years in which He went about doing good, but in the three hours in which He hung, stripped and nailed, in uttermost exhaustion of spirit, soul, and body, till His heart broke. So little wonder for us, if the price of power is weakness." THE CLOSE OF RUE DU CROISSANT­ OPENING OF BOUSAADA-THE NILE MISSION PRESS AT DAR NAAMA, 1925 " THERE is something wonderful in the thought that all the world's commerce of late, and much of the political movements that stand co-related, hang on the coal supply ; in other words, on bringing to the surface the buried lives of the trees and plants of ages far away. May it not be that just as unlooked-for results in ages to come may spring from souls that 'lay in dust, life's glory dead,' and have before them ' a better resurrection ' in power trans­ muted in undreamed-of ways when God's purpose comes to birth. The buried fronds and fibres seemed over and done with, but their stored-up sunrays were waiting un­ dimmed through those centuries on centuries of burial, only waiting to be given out. Sometimes I wonder whether some such story lies behind the persistent welling up of light and heat in the South, for it has nothing to do with us. We felt the Spirit's power there before ever we uttered a word, and now Ali and Amar tell us that there were Christians there long ago, in Roman days, I suppose, and that their traces are well known as far as the country on the other side of the Chott. ' The double cross with which our foreheads are tattooed down there,' said Amar, ' must come from those days, and at the circumcision feast the boys are marked on their gandouras with a saffron cross on their breast and back,' in strange perpetuation, it would seem, ofthe signing of the cross in baptism. " It may be just the pent-up prayers of centuries that is breaking into flame now." I. L. T. CHAPTER XX

THE CLOSE OF RUE DU CROISSANT - OPENING OF BOUSAADA - THE NILE MISSION PRESS AT DAR NAAMA, 1925

" IT is wonderful to wake up to the New Year's morning with the joy of last night's telegram telling that Tlemcen has become another post held fot Him Who shall divide the spoil with the strong. " The very weakness of the new venture-not a learned man able to cope with it, but just one of us women-marks it as His choice." This year Miss Trotter was corresponding with the Nile Mission Press Committee about the desirability of starting a Book Dep6t in Algiers. She wrote : " We have financially enough in hand to help forward some such small start, and the wonderful readiness at the present time, not only to receive but to buy, when papers are small and low-priced, seems to mark it as the moment for going forward." It was a great consolation to her that at this time her dear friend, Mrs. Brading, undertook the arduous work of acting as Honorary Secretary in England for the A.M.B. Miss Trotter delighted in planning all the details of the little office for which Mrs. Brading was so generously giving space in her house. It was to be "a place of general focus on the English side of the watet, where sub­ scriptions could be received, information given, and papers distributed." I. L. T. TO MRS. BRADING "February 2nd. " We are having a big upheaval, having heard yesterday that the dear old Rue du Croissant house is sold over our heads and that we must turn out in three months. So you must make haste if you want to see it again for Auld Lang

Syne. We. feel in great peace about it7 because it comes 15 216 I. Lilias Trotter with a distinct sense of openings in other directions, but it will need special prayer to see just what to do. " Increasingly we have the conviction that our calling is in the interior, and in the taking of the first message to those who are ignorant and out of the way, rather than in constructive work in the towns." To MR. BRADING The letter is full of many details in reference to the printing of books, etc., then she adds : " The great joy of giving the order for the car has just been mine, for the money is so nearly in hand I felt I could back the balance needed. Mr. Theobald is very happy about it. He and M. Pierre hope to start on their first tour the middle of January. They begin lessons in chauffeur work on Monday. About the name on the car­ it seems to me that it would be more suitable, when over­ hauled by the authorities, that it should bear a man's name rather than a woman's, let alone a woman of seventy-two, who has nearly done her day's work." Journal: " February I 9th.-' The Lord is a Sun and a Shield ' -those two similes make up the story out here, a sun in the path He has prepared for us, a shield from the by-path where we should lose ourselves. "We seem to need that shielding very specially this spring, for the new paths that seem to call us cannot all be entered with our slender forces. We need to learn to wait the ripening of His time. As William Law said, long ago, 'Thou canst go no faster than an entire depend­ ence on God can carry thee.' " This morning all went down to the last Easter Communion Service in the dear crypt at the Rue du Croissant. I am glad it was one of true victory, for the Ramadan Communion Service is always a test time-will they or will they not dare to stand up in the face of the 'Adherents,' who will doubtless spread the news? 'Take, eat,' is defiance of all the Moslem world." " February 2 Sth.-The problem I feel is the housing of the baby Church, very small and very precious, as most The Close of Rue du Croissant 217 babies are. The great difficulty is to find a place secluded from street disturbances where the Nicodemus man and the nervous Eastern woman can slip in quietly." " March 2oth.-The first glimmer of light over Rue du Croissant housing question is that Mr. Smeeton comes up here to take possession of a set of rooms on the ground floor, where he will have space for himself and his books, and. we shall have among us the atmosphere of prayer and peace that he has shed around him down below." " March 2 8th.-One more great thanksgiving is that the quarter is closing without deficit, though the last month's outlay has been heavier than ever. 'Before they call I will answer ' ; this morning brought us a cheque for a hundred dollars from a dear man with very human interests in the human nature of the missionaries : he sent us three tips last year, to be expended for special treats for the missionaries, so we felt he would like this cheque to be earmarked for furloughs." To MRs. BRADING "March. " It will be a big thing if those going home on furlough can feel that they have a pied-a-terre with you as regards an official address and any personal touch that comes. All this, and the sense of having ' true yoke-fellows ' in you both, means far more than I can say, and seems such a beautiful sequel to your having been the first to come to our help in the long-ago days." Journal: " Tuesday, April 14th.-Strange news comes from the East, telling that both India and Egypt have forbidden the pilgrimage this year, and that the Holy Carpet will not be sent from Cairo to Mecca. If such a thing had been decreed by outward force of arms it might well have meant a Jehad, but it is promulgated by themselves. Surely ' he shall be broken without hands.' " " April 16th.-A joyful half-hour with Mabel over her lovely designs for the Sevenfold Secret book, and out of it grew a talk which inspires fresh hope and prayer. I was telling her how I felt that if a work of

F. H. F. TO B. A. F. P. " August 5th. "I begin with good news. The doctor, who has been away, when he saw Lily a day or two ago, said : ' A grand amelioration '-the first cheering thing he has said to me since she was taken ill. The heart is still very feeble, and she cannot leave her bed. She is a wonder-her mind so bright and herself so happy and full of work. There is always so much writing and arranging to do. This summer is rather trying from the great heaviness of the air, added to the heat. " Lily was noticing the other day that the places which in the old times were impossible have all been given to us one by one, so that now each has its Mission House ! " Journal: " October 4th.-The first crocuses are just in from the The Nile Mission Press at Dar Naama, 1925 221 garden. What is it that makes the crocus form and the wild tulip form go to one's heart in such a strange fashion, and wake such a joy there? There must be something in the flame form, I think. The wild iris shares it in a measure, specially the golden fleur-de-lis of the spring."

EXTRACTS FROM A CIRCULAR-LETTER SENT AT THIS TIME TO MEMBERS OF THE A.M.B. "DEAR FRIENDs,-Such a welcome! though it cannot be face to face this time. I am writing you about a bit of co-operation that I think may have wide-reaching results. "Mr. Upson hopes to come to us next month from Egypt, by invitation and the kind co-operation of the Nile Mission Press Committee, with a view to seeing how best to further the distribution of Christian literature among Moslems. Also with the hope that a Nile Mission Press Dep6t may be opened here, where those wishing to procure literature can order it without the difficulty and expense and loss of time involved in sending to Egypt. There is just now a marvellous readiness to receive Christian liter­ ature, and to buy it when prices can be adjusted. " Alas ! our means of circulating the Nile Mission literature is limited by the lack of Arabic-speaking col­ porteurs, and by the illiteracy of the Arabs, except in the South. But, on the other hand, a fresh opening is coming all around us for Evangelistic literature for Moslems in French. We hear, as far as east Persia there is a demand for this, and it may be that Mr. Upson's coming among us will give this impetus. " The special points are : " 1. That all over the country the boys and lads and younger men (our strategic point) are learning to read French rather than Arabic, and the girls are following on. "2. The whole of the Kabyle and other Berber popu- lation is by this means brought within reach. " 3. Evangelistic literature in French can equally be used in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, etc. " The following are only a few suggestions as to how this circulation could be effected : 222 I. Lilias Trotter

" 1. By giving small prizes of booklets for regular- attendance at classes. " 2. By bookstalls at dispensaries. " 3. By distribution on journeys, etc. " 4. By bookstalls on market days. " 5. Sending by post to native friends who have gone to a distance or to friendly ' Colons.' "

To MR. UPSON " November 7th. " .. I should feel penitent at having a hand in bringing you all this way for so small an immediate result, only that it is a question of flooding this whole land, from Tripoli to Morocco, with light and life germs as quickly as possible, and one must begin somewhere. " The Committee will by now have voiced its welcome, and will have told you how clearly they feel that your thought of the 'Depet' up here meets present develop­ ments, if accepted by the N.M.P. Executive. Details about the 'Dep6t' will be thrashed out later. "The language-belts of the country would make it difficult to do N.M.P. work and evangelize the unevangel­ ized district of mountains, tablelands, and plains in fort­ nightly shifts, our distances here being so great and N.M.P. literature being chiefly available in the South and in Tunisia. But ' the South ' is a vast :field of work in every sense, and the region whence native helpers for the future may be hoped for. Hitherto, we have been able to do very little for it. " Your visit and your counsels have been an immense inspiration and help to our workers, who have done their best in distribution, year by year, in different directions. They will be greatly helped in the future by having the supply of literature within easy reach and new productions of the N.M.P. on view. " Personally, I feel your visit has been God-sent all round, ' and to me also,' and its exact timing with the. :finding us all together here has been a very beautiful bit of God's mosaic, and one which :fills us with hope for the outworking of His thoughts which are to us-ward."

NARROWING OF THE PATHWAY, 1926 CHAPTER XXI

NARROWING OF THE PATHWAY, 1926

OURNAL continued: " J~nuary rst.-~ n_e'!, year has never yet opened J· here with such poss1b1ht1es at our feet, or such a sense of spring in the whole Band, to go in and possess. " It is that rising sense of faith initiative, even more than the new sources opened last year for. fresh help from outside, that marks advance. Tlemcen, Dellys, Bousaada, and the car-our four points of last year's advance-are well marked by a shouldering of responsibility of faith as well as action in those concerned in them. In Relizane, as befits an ' old station,' the way of faith has gone a step farther in linking in the children in the prayer path, and teaching them to ask for things they have need of as the creche work expands-coffee cups, mattresses, supplies for the Christmas f~te, and so on-and there is jubilation to­ gether when the answer comes. All this means a freeing of latent powers in a new direction, praise be to God ! " " January 2 ISt.-The car is actually here. Mr. Theobald and M. Pierre drove it together triumphantly and steered it along the rubbly back road, whence it could come under my windows and be seen from my bed. Such a joy, and so crowded with hopes for the future ! "Then next week Mr. Theobald is looking forward to receiving and storing the beautiful freight that is being brought by the P. & 0. We shall feel indeed, then, that we are a colportage dep~t. All the little yard is developing as an N.M.P. extension, for the new garage is now included in it, fitted up with camping apparatus."

To MR. UPSON " February 1 5th. " Your beautiful budget containing invoice of case of books came this morning for Mr. Theobald, and now we aas I. Lilias Trotter are only waiting for its arrival here. He, in meantime, is off again for the day, at Boufarik market. It is lovely to think of all this consignment coming in. You are really fulfilling your name as ' Nile Mission Press,' and sending your overflow, flooding our dry land. This marks another rise in the Nile here.''

Journal: " February I 9th.-Long ago, in the past, it was a joy to think that God needed one. Now it is a far deeper joy to feel and see that He does not need one, that He has it all in hand.'' "February 22nd.-l have been counting my blessings in the way of flowers : my bunches and pots are twelve. They are worth chronicling for the joy they are, and for the love they mean. If I have not walked out to see the world this year, it has walked in to me, in a wonderful fashion.'' " March I 6th.-These days have brought the finishing off of the bird book for small Arab girls. It has got on by slow degrees all these months, often a few strokes at a time, with dizzy head and feckless hand. Certainly if it is the weak things that God can use, He has had His full opportunity now.'' '' April 3rd.-This evening closes the year since coming to bed to stay there. I think it has been quite the happiest year of my life, and it is nice of it to close on Easter Eve, the most beloved day of all the year. A new beauty has come into it in thinking over those hours. Jesus must have gone to Paradise from the Cross, for He promised the thief that He would meet him there. It would seem that once more the love of His heart drew Him down from its rest to that mysterious ministry to the spirits in prison, to the lowest parts of the earth. And again, on Easter morning He delayed, it seems, going to His Father in the first hour of triumph, that He might be able to meet Mary and convince her that He was ' risen ' indeed. Surely, to the end and to the uttermost, it was ' others ' all the time.'' Narrowing of the Pathway, 192(5

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " Things really just began to march on from the very month that I took to my bed, which is beautiful in its restfulness and certainty that all is in His way in my abiding here." Journal: " April 6th.-' Of Thine own have we given Thee '­ that was to-day's sermon, and the text was my beloved George, who will be three next Saturday. He marched in with two pink blossoms, that exactly matched his cheeks, from the flowering shrub outside. ' I have brought you two flowers from my garden ; there are two-one has a stalk; they are from my garden,' with an expression of great dignity. " They must be as amused up in heaven when we make much of our so-called consecration of things that never were our own to give, and yet those two little pinched-off flowers were indefinitely more precious than the scores that were left on the bush, because of the love in his dear eyes." "May 26th.-The Committee will soon be here, and I am receiving them with much outward glory, in Dr. Grace's beautiful bed, in the window where I can face them all, and arrayed in a white Jelaba brought from Biskra by the other Grace. It has been a wonderful gift from God to us all having Mr. Collinson here in his combination of spirituality and level-headedness."

I. L. T. TO MRS. BRADING "July 5th. " What can I say in sending back your little girl but that she has crept into the cockles of my heart, and deeper down there than ever in those last thirty-four hours, whose story she will tell you-only she will not tell you of all she was and all she did through those hours, nor of the perfect work of patience that God has been working in her all these months, and the climax of testing came in seeing all her dear work of ordering and plenishing turned to cinders before her eyes ... ," 228 I. Lilias Trotter

F. H. F. TO B. A. F. P. "July. " Lily is quite wonderfully well ; she cannot, of course, leave her bed, but she is so bright and seems to feel her heart so little that we are very happy about her. We had a fire here on the night of last Tuesday, and it took some time before the :fireman got it under control. When­ ever we think of what it might have been we can only thank our Heavenly Father for His protecting care. During the fire the night was perfectly calm, but about four hours after a wind sprang up which the fireman said they could not have fought against, and the whole house, and also much of the village, must have gone. In the court below we had our winter stock of wood, and in the shed the horse's hay. Just across the lane was the stock of petrol and such-like for the village. When the cure heard of the danger to the house, he rang a mighty tocsin on the church bell and then came to see if he could help us, accompanied by almost all the people of the village. The :firemen feared for the roof of Lily's room, and she had to be carried out on a mattress and laid down near the well. "All the Arab women and children were crouching round her. Lily was absolutely calm, and when the doctor appeared I do not believe he found one beat extra as he felt her pulse. The fire must have been smouldering for some time, and when it did burst out the two rooms formed an unapproachable furnace. Happily all our dear people kept their heads, and I am told that the mayor expressed his surprise that among ces dames he did not find one afraid. I am glad we did not bring dishonour on our Christianity. The loss is, of course, serious, but our Father knows, and as a dear Arab woman said to Lily, ' You see you can save up and one year buy one sheet, and the next another sheet.'"

I. L. T. TO B. A. F. P. " It was perfectly beautiful how God guarded every­ thing, even to there being enough water in the well when the village supply gave out. All our wells have run dry Narrowing of the Pathway, 1926 now, except a scanty measure out of reach in the orange garden. Where should we have been in that case and the village with us at the time of the fire ? "As Mimoun, our garden boy, said, 'Jesus was there, just like that night on earth when He stretched out His hands and stilled the wind, and He trod on the flames as He trod on the waves ' ; and so it was." " July I 3th.-We have had another wonderful week of seeing again and again surprises that God had hidden away from us in these two hours of the fire. The last of them is to me the most beautiful of all.....-a dear, affectionate letter of sympathy from Si Ali. Not a word in it giving a trace of the strange spell that has been on him, and forgetting no one. It has come with an intense relief, not only in itself, but in breaking the ice and setting communication free again." "September 2nd.-Another corroboration of God's way has come, with such a tide of joy. I h-ad got a bit into low water physically last week with the heavy, moist heat. Dr. Dana wanted another opinion, which came yesterday, in a man who interested me extremely and awoke a big prayer-tide. His verdict was that it was tres bizarre that I should still be in this world, but that this being so, I might, under the same conditions, remain in it. It is a very solemn thing to realize that physical, as well as spiritual, life depends on that channel to the Upper Springs being kept clear for the quickening of the mortal body by the Spirit that dwelleth in us, till our work is done." HOME, 1927 and 1928

16 THE MAN WHO HEARD THE WATER " SoME years ago a French colonist in America obtained a concession in the Far West and set to work to prepare a home to which he could bring his family. Towards the ocean his land lay stretched away in the plains, while on the east it was bounded by the huge, steep cliff of a mountain range. For the first two years the crops sprang up readily, · only to wilt and wither with the heat. The time for bring­ ing his wife and children seemed as far off as ever. " Then came a crisis. On still nights the farmer had always been able to distinguish the sound as of rushing water, coming from a distance. In his despair, as he listened and pondered, he was convinced that a stream flowed behind the rock barrier. Was it available ? His whole future hung on the favourable answer to that ques­ tion. The man appealed to the Government for a survey. Experts were sent, and true enough they found the water rush~n_g down a canyon on the other side of the mountain prec1p1ce. " But the canyon was so deep and narrow that it could be surveyed with difficulty, and the task of bringing the torrent where the farmer could use it seemed a still more difficult problem. "Orders were, however, given at Washington that the project was to be carried through. The rock-wall proved to be so hard that only a diamond drill could succeed in piercing it, making an aperture two inches in diameter. From both sides of the wall the engineers made their borings with such accuracy that they met in the centre. Then the hole was enlarged, and the water began to flow through the opening. It rushed through, irrigating not only that colonist's concession, but flowing over the broad, barren plain towards the ocean with its unused resources, transforming the desert into one of the best peach-bearing sections in the States-all because one man heard the sound of the rushing water and set his heart on obtaining it. . . . " We, engaged in Moslem work, live in a land of 232 blighted promises-that is a fact that those of us who love its people best cannot deny; and the deadly heart-sickness of hope deferred sometimes makes even the most optimistic among us almost despair of seeing abiding fruitage to the work. "But we hear the sound of water. Distant it may be, and only to be discerned in a God-given stillness, but once we have heard it and know what it means, a new courage ~akes possession of us. Life can never be the same agam. " ' I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground, on conscious need and unconscious need alike. I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.' The 232,000,000 of Islam must be included in that 'All.' " If we hear, even afar off, the flow of the river of God, it is ours to make the water available. The deepest, holiest, most awful responsibility lies on us, individually and collectively, to bring these promises to bear, at any cost. In the light of Eternity, which will soon dawn on us, it matters not so much what we can do in ploughing and sowing our bit of dusty soil, as what we can do in the prayer realm, by setting free God's refreshing streams. Who can tell what one soul among us, dead in earnest for this, may bring to pass ? In Uganda, George Pilking­ ton heard the water and he obtained it for his land. Jona­ than Goforth heard the water for China, and he won it. We may find, when we reach the unseen, that every great inflowing of power of the Holy Spirit can be traced back to some soul, often unknown on earth, who has had power with God and has prevailed. " 'He that seeketh findeth,' with a more unerring certainty than in the piercing of that California rock wall ; our seeking will meet His. For He must be longing for an inlet into our wilderness with a desire that is infinite ; only He is waiting for the seeking from our side. Shall He wait in vain ? " From The Moslem World, by I. LILIAS TROTTER. OAR EL FEDJR NEW MISSION HOUSE AT DAR NAAMA,

-~ WELL AT DAR NAAMA. CHAPTER XXII

HOME, 1927 AND 1928

"J'ANUART 1st, 1927.-A wonderful sense of sur­ prise on ahead, a beautiful New Year,s day · beginning, for the sunrise flamed up behind the pine tree in the most glorious crimson ' wings of the morning., Will the first flashing up of the heavenly sunrise come this year out of the murk, because of the murk ?-for those rose-red dawns mean a gathering storm that is bound to break.,, Miss Trotter had the joy of visits from one after another over whom she had longed and prayed, two asking for baptism and others owning that they had received Christ into their hearts. She writes: " January 2nd.-Even here, in poor old Algiers, the dawn is stirring in its sleep, as it does in nature before ever the hour comes for the opening of its eyes. Surely these quiet germinatings going on under the earth's deep coverlet of snow mean a sudden upspringing not far away. "All these things are so wonderful to watch-all the more wonderful from the watching being from a quiet room full of flowers, instead of from the din and dust of the battlefield, good though that was when God gave it ; only now it is easier to trace the working-out of these ' parts of His ways,' and to almost see the still unrevealed thought that links them.,, "January 23rd.-The long, hard winter has broken at last, not as yet in much sign on the earthward side, but in the late afternoon yesterday the great cumulus clouds sank away and in their place lay long horizontal bars, one above another, dove-grey, touched with a pale apricot, upon the tender eggshell blue of the eastern sky ; they are a harbinger of spring that I have never known to fail. " It is remarkable how, in two places, the fathers and mothers have come and asked to have their children :135 I. Lilias Trotter received and taught, though they know full well what it means ; such a thing must surely mean a ' crumbling of the defences.' " The spring flowers that stand all about my room in native pots of green and yellow earthenware bring a very real revelation of Him by Whom they were created ; ' the clear happiness of the daisies, and the radiant shout of the celandines, and the deep, sweet joy of the almond blossoms with their mystical hearts, are all literal forthshadowings of the ' gladness above His fellows.' ' Then shall Thy smile discover many things, Why laugh the hearts of children at their play, Why skip the lambs, and why the skylark sings.' " Speaking of the lives that had been laid down in the Band, she wrote : " We shall see one day the meaning of those cut-short lives, for surely all that matters is that we get our bit of training down here, for the outcome when Christ is reigning. The training and testing for that is all that really matters."

I. L. T. TO MRS. BRADING "May 13th, 1927. " Pray that we may have light next week for the putting together of the first number of A Thirsty Land, for which this week seems hardly to have given much scope. One does long that God's breath should breathe through it." " July I 5th.-Miss Freeman and I quite agree with you and the Council that there should be no approaching men with a view to asking them to consider the needs of the work, but that the initiative should come from the candidates, i.e. on the same principle as that of financial needs." Journal: " August 3rd.-The first Sunday of the month, that brings the Communion in the Arab Service, saw to-day a delightful medley. We counted up with joyfulness the parts of the Church Militant that we represented : Quaker, High Church, Low Church, Baptist, Presbyterian, Home, 1927 and 1928 2 37 Methodist, Salvation Army born, a Congregationalist got down from her housework just too late, and there were Arabs from three fraternities." "October 27th.-Yesterday's steamer brought a beau­ tiful bit of home in the coming for the precious inside of a fortnight of Margaret. . . . I am putting my hand in again to help with the Bird Book, to give the babies of the land their first picture-book of their own. " ' It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait.' I never saw that word ' both ' till to-day, with its wonderful balance so needed in the work of Moslem lands. Some of us rush ahead with our hopes, and are downhearted when they crumble, not having learnt to ' quietly wait ' for the unfolding of the germ that could only be released by that crumbling. Others of us go on quietly waiting half a lifetime, without much of the Spring of Hope anywhere. ' Both hope and quietly wait ' in quietness and confidence gives the same poise, and so does ' the patience of Hope ' in New Testament language." "November 28th.-To-day's papers tell of the terrible cloudburst over all the province of Oran, coming down in sheets of water after a five years' drought.'' She was very anxious about Miss Freeman, and writes : " Helen went to Mascara under a strong sense of urge that she would be needed. This seemed proved by the drawing Christwards of some souls there. Now I feel it will be a double seal to her that she was needed, for she would have been very unhappy about her poor Fanny being left to cope single-handed with this time of trouble, and we can imagine what a dear rock of calm and stead­ fastness she will have been to them all. I am so thankful, too, for the signs of God's using these calamities to shake the people out of their apathy. " I know that you will be praying that she may come to no harm up there in the cold and the wet, and with the Branch Line broken that connects Mascara with the outer world. I am afraid dear Bou Hanifia will have suffered terribly, for the waters rushed down there past Mascara ~. in an ever-increasing torrent, so strong that it carried away the dam that formed a real Scotch lake at the foot of the I. Lilia.s Trotter hills, and its bursting has flooded the country, carrying away houses even at Mostaganem on the sea-coast. Relizane was threatened for a time, as their river-dam was in danger of bursting too." The friend who sends me the following letter says : " I have a letter which Miss Trotter sent me shortly before passing. It gives a little of the inner side; how she kept going until her task was done."

"DAR NAAMA, November 26th, 1927. " Your letter was indeed a disappointment on the human side, for we were so looking forward to a sight of you ; but there seems no doubt that it is God's withholding, and therefore would not have worked out into His perfect plan. " And for you on your side, it is one of those things that ' seemeth to be grievous,' for sleeplessness and its nerve strain means such a pull on your forces. Specially in all that deputation work means in its constant change of sleeping accommodation, plus the evening meetings and the long conversations when dead tired. I see nothing for it but to ask for you very definitely the quickening of the mortal body by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. I have had some very wonderful glimpses about the two distinct foci of life-the outward that perisheth ' and the inward that is most definitely ' renewed every day ' with an overflow, whenever a special call comes for the levelling up of the natural life to the need, without any reaction when the stress is over. I wonder whether His dealings with the bodily life of His children (I don't mean in 'heal­ ing,' which may or may not be given, but in learning in a tiny measure about being ' saved by His Life ') may not be a part of the preparation of His Church for the hour of His coming when 'we shall all be changed' and 'this mortal must put on immortality.' If so, it behoves us each to learn our bit, and to rejoice in all that brings us low enough to learn it. " I did not mean to preach a sermon-but you invited one, and that is what comes as an ' Experience.' " Home, 1927 and 1928

I. L. T. TO A WORKER (on the death of her father) "November Sfh, 1927. "This afternoon's post has brought your letter and its news, you brave Alice, to go right on, and we shall be asking for His perfect peace to garrison past and present and future peace. Him that is, and that was, and that is to come, He understands that it was for His name's sake that you went forth, rather than risk an indefinite delay, and I believe He will give a harvest out of it-a harvest in which you and your father will rejoice together. I think even now he is glad, in the light in' which he sees light, that he and you made the choice you did. How our arms will be round you all the way I "

To THE SAME " What a lovely beginning with the Marabout, and how well I remember a like gathering there (en route for the Shrine), and how good if you get up that route ; we set up our banners there at the prayer-meeting this morning in the shape of a little blue flag on the map and another for B., and another at Relizane, where there has been a tough fight. "My heart is so with you. How like our Lord to comfort you with a bit of lifted veil of His Glory in that sunset I" These extracts from her letters have been given to show Miss Trotter's joyful interest in the work carried on in the South land, when she herself was confined to her room in great weakness. In a letter of April 192 8, after saying that reading had been getting difficult to her of late, she adds : " How good it will be when we get our new bodies, and how we will career about this beloved Africa and see it stretching out its hands to God ! " Journal: "December 2oth.-' I am come into deep waters' took on a new meaning this morning ; it started with a per­ plexing matter concerning the future, then it dawned that I. Lilias Trotter shallow waters were a place where you can neither sink nor swim. In deep waters it is either one or the other, 'waters to swim in,' not to float in. Swimming is the intensest, most strenuous form of motion. All of you is involved in it, and yet every inch of you is in abandonment of rest upon the water that bears you up. ' We rest in Thee, and in Thy Name we go ....'" "December 22nd.-To-day has brought a whole shower of Heaven's gifts : nearly £80 by this morning's post was only the first to show the Lord's hand was not shortened nor His ear heavy; then £43 from Reba, and so, once more, Christ has been Conqueror." " March 6th, 1928 .-Again and again the cry for that Brotherhood House wells up, with a sense that it finds an echo in Heaven, or rather it may be that the cry down here is the echo of things that are beginning to be wrought over there in the unseen. " For clearer and clearer grows the light on prayer, being summed up in the words-not in a passive sense­ of co-operation of the human and the divine, ' Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' The fiat there-the Amen here." " March 8th.-Our fortieth year opens this evening, the evening that brought our steamer into the glittering lights of Algiers harbour. Who can utter the acts of the Lord and show forth all His praise, as we look back over His faithful, patient care and His leading on in our blindness ? " "March 26th.-The day has brought its crowning in the dedication of the New Hostel. We waited till now that Alice Kemp might share it. Each room had its own special share of prayer, led by one and another from Mr. Collinson to Si Amar." April 30th. She wrote : "To every inward experience and every outward bit of service, He puts the seal of His Amen in a way that is known to us and to Him-the inward hush of ' It is finished.' " " May 8th.-It is Sunday afternoon, and the first of the ' Sons of the Beloved ' is joining the ranks of the Home, 1927 and 1928 Church Militant, a day we think that is being rejoiced over in heaven too, by those who watch with us the ' first­ fruits ' gathered here and there." The last entry in her journal for 1928 is June 17th and I 8th, written in pencil and difficult to read. " ' Open flowers,' they are the last but one in the series of the temple carvings. Patience and fearlessness and purity, fruitfulness and the passion for service, we have seen them all symbolized. Open flowers surely tell of the joy that is to run through it all. " We speak of the God of love and the God of peace, so seldom of the God of joy ; just that one thing that the opening flowers tell of. • Thy will be done on earth now, Holy, Holy, Holy.' " Miss Trotter once wrote : "Walk independently of self, and straight to God. What is anything, when you think of Eternity, except a means to get there ; so laugh at everything, and go on in God's name." The summer months were marked by increasing weak­ ness and suffering. The release came on August 27th, when she passed into the more immediate presence of her Lord, To those who watched beside her it seemed as if in very deed she was following hard after One who steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and it was into the Heavenly Jerusalem and the joy of her Lord that her quest led her. An outposter writes : " Miss Trotter always seemed so young ; she used to tell us what age she felt sometimes, and it was not half her actual years. She never lost her enthusiasm or her capacity for wonder, or her sense of humour, and she loved people to be thrilled with a thought or a place. To come back from seeing, for the first time, some desert town which she loved and to tell her all about it, was a joyful and satisfy­ ing experience. Always interested in new points of view, or new methods, even though she might not agree with them, Miss Trotter was never 'damping,' even to the newest fledged. I. Lilias Trotter "Her capacity for work was tremendous, and the pace she set was one which left all others in the rear. But though in this, as in all things, her standard was exceedingly high, she was very merciful and encouraging to short­ comers. "As a leader she was unique in her clear insight into the capacities and possibilities of members of her Band, and in her power to appoint to each the bit of work for which they were suited. Through her encoura~ement gifts were discovered and talents developed whicli their owners at times hardly knew they possessed. " In reading books on spiritual subjects one has some­ times wondered how high truths work out in the warp and woof of the author's life. As we watched Miss Trotter, radiant and serene, amid difficulties, strain and stress, interruptions, joys and sorrows, we saw that she had proved in her own life the truth of what she had written. However busy or weary she might be, her morning watch was always kept, and long before day dawned her light was burning. How much we owe to her prayers we shall never know till Eternity reveals it ! " Her wide outlook and vision, and her touch with world mission problems, went hand in hand with a grasp of detail which amazed, as did her memory. Her methodical files and folios, and her unfailing attention to business and to letters, were all the more remarkable in one who had such great artistic and literary gifts. " Miss Trotter has always seemed to me, in these nearly twenty years of working under her, like a knight with a pure white banner floating on high, and never for an instant lowered, a knight never ' off duty.' " She once wrote this wise sentence : " I don't want to set myself against things that I may not understand ; we shall come to the heavenly solution if we wait and pray." The following letter from Miss Padwick is appended as giving the appreciation of one thoroughly cognizant of the evolution of literature for Moslems : " Miss Lilias Trotter of Algiers, that rare and beloved Home, 1927 and 1928 2 43 spirit, has done more than she ever realized for literature work for Moslems. An artist through and through, she gave up her art (against the protests of many who could judge of her gift) for the sake of evangelism in the neglected field of Algeria. There her beautiful life was spent, with an ever-growing group of those whom her ardent, devoted spirit called to share the work. The ' Algiers Mission Band,' as she has left it, is an organized fellowship of some thirty workers, their headquarters in the beautiful old Algerian house at El Biar, where for the last years Miss Trotter has lived the life of a complete invalid, yet sustaining and inspiring every soul that entered her room. " Her room was full of light and hope. Long service in a hard field had only driven her in upon the deepest sources of hope. The lowering of all earthly lights, the lack of any showy or easily showable 'success' in work, the loss of comrades, finally the loss of that freedom of movement which was dear to her who loved to trek to the desert towns of the Sahara-all this had left her only more conscious of heavenly light. Her very face betrayed it, a shining face as of one who had seen God. The writer remembers a meditation of Lilias Trotter's on the' glorious body' of the Resurrection. ' Suppose,' she mused, 'that instead of blood every vein were to be filled with light I ' Almost it seemed in the last year of her life as though this were happening in herself, so strangely beautiful was the shining of spiritual light in a frail and outwearied body. " The writer treasures two characteristic little phrases • of a last earthly meeting. A flowering twig of wild pear­ blossom had been brought to Miss Trotter from a tree on the hillside which had somehow mistaken the arid brown­ ness of an Algerian autumn for the spring-time, and flowered when all else was dry. Miss Trotter glowed over the surprise of it, caressed it with her artist's hands, and said, with intense delight, 'Oh, that's so like souls : you never know when they'll break out I ' And again, speaking of lowering difficulties, overclouding life, and of the special nearness of God at such times, she said, with her own poet's use of Scripture, ' Where the clouds are He is walking. The clouds are the dust of His feet.' I. Lilias Trotter " Her contribution to literature for Moslems has been small but highly creative, more so than she ever knew on earth. The tracts and parables which she and her comrades brought out struck two notes of freshness that have inspired many-nay, those tracts themselves have been translated into many languages. First, at a time when most literature for Moslems was dealing (and naturally) with the great points of difficulty and difference between the two religions, Miss Trotter wrote stories that, with all their intimate knowledge of Moslem ways and thoughts, appealed first to the fundamental likenesses, the great human needs of all souls. And secondly, at a time when missionary literature, if illustrated at all, was adorned with old-fashioned blocks obtained cheaply from London or America, Miss Trotter gave to all her leaflets a touch of colour and of Oriental beauty, with two-colour designs or little pictures that looked artistically right with the Arabic script instead of foreign and strange. The natural development of this her inspiration, and a development in which her whole soul rejoiced, was the bringing out to the Near East (with the generous help of S.P.C.K. London) of a missionary artist, who should make her life-work the capturing of Eastern beauty for the service of Christ, and the development of a style of illustration for the Arabic script. Miss Trotter used to handle each new batch of pictures by Miss Elsie Anna Wood with keenest delight, and longed to know her personally. This dream was accomplished, and Miss Wood was among the watchers of her last days on earth."

In her story of 1926-1927 she writes : " Midnight, empty breadstalls in the market. Silence as yet in the bakers' street, just a few crusts to be found in the seeker's home, wholly unfit to set before a friend from afar. " Only he knew of the great house of another friend, and there he won his way, through delay and apparent denial, till he bore off the supply. " We have friends without number out here-men friends and women friends, boy and girl friends, friends even among the dear toddlers and the babies who stretch Home, 1927 and 1928 245 out their arms to us in love. They come to us in their darkness and need, and we give them a heart welcome, but ever more keenly do we feel that from our own resources, face to face with the soul starvation of Islam, we have that other ' Friend' for this, and we must wait on Him till ' it shall be opened to us,' ' as many as he needeth '-that is the assurance of the gift of Christ to those who pray through. Three loaves-may we not trace a meaning in the symbolism ? Spirit, soul, and body, all are dumbly waiting in these Moslem lands for the hour when we can bring the life of God within reach. J'he spirit awaits the arousal of the vision of Christ Crucified to quicken it from the sleep of death ; the soul of these races has often rare forces and capacities lying dormant ; even the body needs the liberating of the Spirit of life, dragged down and beset as it is with the deadly heritage of sin. " And here is the promise that is our plea : ' If a man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.' Life for them that come our way heart­ starved-is it not worth the quest ? Christ the ' BREAD OF LIFE' passed through our hands to theirs, that is our high calling."